🛍️ Regenerating the Planet with Storytelling 📖
Photo by NEOM on Unsplash
Summary:
Regenerative API integrates the funding of ecosystem restoration projects within consumer sales. Consumers become part of this through automated storytelling, outlining the impact and benefit of each purchase.
The Problem(s)
1. Our economy is a Degenerative system
Our ecological footprint far exceeds Earth’s ecological capacities and ability to regenerate. We currently use around 50% more ecological resources than nature regenerates each year, highlighting the degenerative dimension of our current consumption patterns.
2. Lack of funding for urgent climate-related issues
The scale of climate-related issues, including biodiversity loss, deforestation, water scarcity, water pollution, and food security, means the current allocation of financial resources to these issues is insufficient. Less than 2% of global philanthropic funding goes toward addressing climate change.
3. Lack of Consumer Awareness of the impact of their consumption
Consumers have limited knowledge of how their consumption may affect ecological systems and the health of the climate. There is a disassociation between the consumers and the impact of their choices; they are not part of the consumption’s wider story. 66% of global consumers say they’re willing to pay more for sustainable goods, but only 26% actively seek out information on a brand’s environmental impact when shopping.
The Scape
Imagine in the not-so-distant future, instead of each customer interaction depleting the earth’s resources, the fabric of commerce is rewoven with each purchase helping regenerate ecosystems in the most dire need.
Online companies have integrated regenerative APIs into their commercial operations, as every product sold helps plant a tree, clean the ocean or protect wildlife.
Companies pledge a certain proportion of each sale towards vetted NGOs and ecosystem restoration projects making on-the-ground impact. Consumers can see this potential impact when buying a particular product, often in a digestible and understandable metric. After each purchase, the customer is sent an automated email outlining the nature and timeline of their donation.
The consumer experience is transformed. Shopping is no longer simply consumption, but an opportunity for action and impact.
For instance, consider Mark, a young fashion student in London committed to helping move the fashion industry away from fast fashion and the 10% of global carbon emission it is responsible for. Mark comes across a clothes company, Re-Wool, which sells woollen jumpers sourced exclusively from UK regenerative farms, whose practices help improve the water cycle and biodiversity while enhancing the soil’s ecosystem.
While deciding to make his purchase, Mark notices that with every purchase, a certain proportion of money is directed to the support and rehabilitation of temperate rainforests in and around Dartmoor National Park. He is even able to track the impact of this donation, which in this case, is planting 10 native trees through the Devon-based charity Moor Trees.
Mark no longer sees his consumption of fashion as negative; an industry that depletes raw materials and ecosystems. But instead, Mark feels proud of his consumption choices. He receives email updates after his purchase outlining the impact of his donation. These emails go beyond simply confirming the donation. They tell a story. A story of what his donation has helped fund, along with the cultural and ecological significance of temperate rainforests in the UK.
Regenerative API integrations begin to start a society-wide shift. Consumers want more transparency on the effects of their purchases. They want real-time tracking and transparency over the environmental impacts of every purchase.
Each consumer has their dashboard linked to their smartphone or laptop keeping track of which projects their everyday spending is funding. The DNA of global commerce has become intertwined with the funding and support of Earth’s most important restoration projects.
Storytelling is now as big a business imperative as ever. Companies start to compete in telling more compelling stories of how their organisation fits within the wider health of the planet. Marketing departments have moved away from using manipulative and attention-grabbing techniques to a form of storytelling that teaches and enriches consumers; placing them at the centre of a story of hope, one of regeneration.
Consumers are now not only more informed but have become conscientious consumers. By simply making the positive impact of consumption accessible and transparent to consumers, the knock-on effects on consumer habits and awareness are seismic.
Downstream Value Creation
Increase funding for essential environmental projects
Regenerative APIs help direct funding towards some of the most in-need environmental projects helping tackle biodiversity loss, deforestation, etc. Rather than relying on donations, the funding of these projects becomes an essential part of our economic systems.
Changing Consumer Habits
As consumers increasingly warm towards impactful consumption and become part of the story of regeneration, businesses will have to follow these trends. Corporate responsibility will need to become foundational to any business, along with the transparency by which this impact is made.
Regenerating Supply Chains and Business Models
Beyond simply the customer, a similar model may become part of the supply chain and business models for businesses looking to reliably source raw materials and goods. One company’s waste may be valuable for another company.
For Digging Deeper…
💫 Verdn - Inspiration for this Week’s Scape 💫
Inspiration for this week, this start-up is bringing climate-impact API for companies and their end-customers; helping bridge the patterns of consumption and donation.
Our economy is a degenerative system
Wonderful article by Daniel Wahl highlighting the degenerative nature of our economic system, and why if we don’t radically change how we value and regenerate nature, earth’s systems are not sustainable.
An example of one of the restoration projects which Verdn is working with, funding large-scale landscape restoration projects mitigate the effects of climate change, restore ecosystems, and foster community development.
