REgenerative Economics Keynote Speech
In May 2023, I was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the University of Glasgow’s Scottish Pluralism in Economics Conference (SPEC). In attendance were notable economists such as Professor Steve Keen, leaders of government advisory and also students who were interested in the topic. Key points from the presentation included:
- A highlight of the key assumptions in neo-classical economics that have been proven to be false in the past two decades
- The role of conventional economics in cultural and species extinction
- The limitations of ESG and sustainability frameworks in facilitation real impact
- Why it is so difficult to shift the current economic paradigm
- The necessity of individual and cultural healing and the role of trauma in modern economics
- Seeing living systems patterns in places
- What regenerative investing looks like: investing in place – based potential
The paradigm of scarcity in neo-classical economics is a trauma response to perceived dangers associated with uncertainty, particularly the threat nature poses to our existence. This trauma is stored in the body.
The necessary shift to our economic paradigm which is highly extractive and has lead to major imbalances in our natural system – now posing and existential threat to the human species, is a shift towards a regenerative economics model. Regeneration is about creating the conditions for all of live to thrive and requires three lines of work to take place simultaneously. That is healing:
- The Self
- The Group
- The SystemÂ
