What does "integral, regenerative" actually mean in a cooperative?
First of all, the definition of the sub-areas
integral: from Integral Theory
The "Integral Theory"was significantly shaped by the American philosopher and interdisciplinary thinker Ken Wilber. Integral means a comprehensive, balanced, and holistic worldview. An integral perspective always seeks the connections, the relationships between different areas.
Integral theory opens up perspectives that contribute to promoting levels of understanding that capture different aspects of our systemic reality - such as biological constitution, cultural worldviews, the felt self-understanding, and social systems - all of which are crucial for a comprehensive systemic understanding. Integral theory provides a framework for "all quadrants, all levels" of our human consciousness, which simultaneously acknowledges the important contributions of a wide spectrum of epistemological views and is also aware of the limitations and misunderstandings of these perspectives. In other words, integral theory expands our perspectives, enabling us to categorise different knowledge approaches in a way that they complement each other synergistically rather than contradicting one another. It has a far-reaching root system beginning with Georg Friedrich Hegel, who was the first to explain the mechanisms of evolution, through Sri Aurobindo, C.G. Jung, Jean Piaget, Jean Gebser, Ken Wilber, Jürgen Habermas, and many others.
Within the cooperative, we place value on members being able to access as many perspectives of perception as possible, and we explicitly promote personal development as an important value of our organisation. This simplifies our collaboration, enables a high degree of self-responsibility and self-organisation, and fosters dialogue with our clients.
Regenerative, from "regenerative culture"
Behaviours do bring about change, but they are only as effective as our ability to see the world as it is, and this ability is directly related to our inner operating system or human consciousness. Regenerative organisations, institutions, and communities understand and work according to this principle.
When people and organisations enhance their ability to think and work in ways that align with how nature functions, we can find that our capacity to regenerate ourselves, the environment, and the communities in which we work is easier to achieve. Regeneration is the act of infusing something that may have lost life or meaning with new life or energy.
An organisation that engages in this consciously moves away from a machine-based, closed way of working towards a living system, a regenerative practice. Every person in the company defines and plays a role in the regeneration of their work, their community, and the industry in which they operate. The cooperative consciously gives back a portion of its profits to the environment, not only to operate a circular economy but to actively give back to the environment.
Employees will become more aware of their unique role and their contribution to the greater whole. Qualitative measures will become more valuable, as performance and innovation naturally increase, because the employees' sense of being able to make a difference deepens when they are connected to what is important to them. They begin to recognise that their own development is directly related to the larger system in which they work, whether in business, social or community development, etc.
Beyond sustainability: The regenerative cooperative
Regenerative Cooperativesarise from the desire for better living conditions and from the awareness that each member of the community brings individual values and effectiveness. How the community aligns itself and which intermediate steps are right and meaningful for collective success is revealed in the current joint actions - in this way, there is no desired, normative end state, but always the pragmatic and improvable current state.
A regenerative enterprise is "a venture that pro-actively grows and cultivates the foundational pools of social, cultural, spiritual, and living capital by providing goods and services in a way that creates net positive gains for the system as a whole"
Ethan Roland & Gregory Landura (2013)
A regenerative enterprise is "a company that proactively grows and cultivates the foundational pools of social, cultural, spiritual, and living capital by providing goods and services in a way that creates positive net gains for the system as a whole."
A regenerative cooperative is concerned with meeting the needs of the community with and for each other. As many parts of the cooperative capital as possible are then used for the best possible common value and the regeneration of the environment.
In most cooperatives, the economic promotion of the members is the focus, thus an economic and material orientation. This is existential, but only provides a limited motivating basis for a social and emotional structure. Here, theintegral, regenerative cooperativemerges the conventional with the demands of new socio-economic developments and embarks on experimental paths.
Our work, both internally and externally, therefore aims to empower individuals, teams, and organisations to focus inwardly to redefine who they are, why they are where they are, and what they truly want to achieve. Once this "inner work" is completed, it is possible to redesign what they do, change behaviours, and alter their impact on the natural, social, and economic environment to achieve a trusting collaboration, a felt connection, and thus an enhanced well-being for themselves and others.
