As a former professional dancer the key question that keeps coming back to me is: How do we dance with systems (Meadows)? And so, how do we create a dynamic balance between materials demand and offer and (bio)regional available resources? With a view to move away not only from siloed consultancy approaches (“What material should we use? How can we measure its circularity? How do we manage waste in the most efficient way for our business and process? etc.), I realized the best way to support any organization to address any material related issue, is to expose them firstly to the actual materials. And consequently to guide them through the regenerative journey they need and moreover for which they are ready for.  

Too much of the “regeneration talk” is done on computers, on Excel files, but regeneration practitioners need to go out and meet these systems they want to co- and re-design. 

Through a systemic thinking approach, at Mater7U the actors involved shall be supported in the co-design process through a hybrid approach that encompasses:

• scientific analysis 

• mapping and modelling tools 

• participatory design tools 

• transformational praxis

Firstly complexity (Sevaldson,  2022). Sustainability conversations in the corporate world have been mostly ignoring the complexity of the polycrisis they found themselves to be a part of. 

When thinking about regenerative materials, my impression is that there is a lot of focus on what is the next most innovative solution or what is the newest biobased material. 

While system thinking invites us to zoom out in the effort of gaining more clarity about what really is at stake. So these two needs come first: “seeing” the system, seeing our role in the system and reconnecting to the authentic core of it, its wounds and its potential regenerative future. In this process I find very prolific the encounter of system thinking with relational system thinking in the quest for reviving indigenous knowledge or connecting to the existing knowledge of the place and any system analysis related to that (Goodchild, 2021 and 2022). 

When practicing system design we support its actor in the visualization process through methodological pluralism.  And every system has to design its own way. And stay flexible enough so that it can keep regenerating itself and all the stakeholders become part of the co-design reiterative process (Dorst, 2019). 

So that is how we actually dance with systems… dancing with people, organizations and places that are in constant transformation. So the problems change, the interventions change (and bring change) and so must the objectives and visions.