For a while, we have known it. Something isn’t right. The way we live is not serving us anymore. The “take-make-use-lose” approach to our resources has pushed our planet to breaking point. Our economies have delivered unimaginable wealth, but only for the few. The system is failing people and planet. Change is overdue.

In 2018, we forecast a pivot from sustainability to regeneration. Doing less harm is no longer enough. We need the positive impact of regeneration: restoring ecosystems, reversing climate change, upending inequality and injustice. Slowly but surely, regeneration has made its way onto the agenda and into the boardroom.

Yet 2020 had other plans, delivering the greatest disruption of our lifetimes. In COVID-19 we experienced a global shock, a universally intense and urgent threat to human health that disrupted economies and shone a harsh light on the frailties and flaws of our economic systems, governments, healthcare, supply chains and more.

Then came the aftershock. As communities reeled, a wave of social justice protests supporting the Black Lives Matter movement swept the world in response to the killing of George Floyd. Such protests have since spread, to Indigenous communities, and subsequently, with the Stop Asian Hate rallies in March 2021, to Asian communities.

The response to these crises was all-consuming. For environmentalists, the fear was raised that the plight of the planet might be pushed to one side. In fact, the opposite happened. Concern for the planet remains high, and the realization has dawned that, in fact, all of these crises are very much intertwined, with people and their wellbeing at their heart.