Introductory description

‘Regenerative Development’ is an emerging area of research and practice, enabling healthy and flourishing social and ecological systems. Moving away from a system where humanity and nature work against each other, to a paradigm where humans thrive as part of nature. From nature-based flood management to new bio-based materials, regenerative approaches are inspired by and work with the evolving, self-organising and self-healing potential of ecological systems. This module explores the potential that regenerative approaches have to transform areas as diverse as food production, construction, manufacturing, product design and urban planning and how technical, policy and social shifts can support these changes into the future.

This module develops postgraduate students’ theoretical, methodological and practical skills to enable humanity to thrive, in the context of pressing environmental challenges. As environmental crises deepen, disciplines and practices respond by integrating new concepts, frameworks and methods into their ways of thinking and intervening in the world.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Projected lecture and seminar themes include:

• Understanding regenerative development
• Regenerative systems
• Working with nature: ecological and bio-inspired approaches:
  o Food and fuel
  o Materials and products
  o Art and design
  o Engineering and construction
  o Policy and society
• Ecoliteracy: crafting stories of regenerative futures
• Regenerative development: a critical appraisal

The course will combine the introduction to a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to regenerative development with the discussion of cases and examples.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of contemporary issues and key transdisciplinary debates around global environmental challenges.
• Critically reflect upon the relevance of regenerative approaches for achieving sustainable futures, using theoretical frameworks and practices from across a range of disciplines.
• Critically examine responses to future global and local environmental challenges faced by contemporary societies (e.g. climate change, biodiversity loss)
• Apply knowledge to examples and analyse selected cases of regenerative approaches to environmental concerns.
• Apply theories of regenerative development to concrete disciplinary, and professional contexts
• Identify innovation in regenerative approaches and their significance for tackling emerging environmental and social challenges

Indicative reading list

Students will be encouraged and assisted in researching and developing their own reading list to support their final assessed pieces.

Readings in preparation for lectures and seminars will mostly consist of journal articles as well as chapters selected from the following background books:

• Broadbent, O. and Norman, J. (2024) The Regenerative Structural Engineer. Institution of Structural Engineers
• Haraway, D.J. (2016) Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chtulucene, Duke University Press, Durham.
• Davis, H. and Turpin, E. (eds.) (2015), Art in the Anthropocene Encounters A mong Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies, Open Humanities Press, London.
• Lyle, J. T. (1996). Regenerative design for sustainable development. John Wiley & Sons.
• Morton, T. (2010) Ecological Thought. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, MA, USA.
• Whitefield P. (2016) The Earth Care Manual: A Permaculture Handbook for Britain and Other Temperate Climates, Permanent Publications: Hampshire

Reports and guides:

• UK Architects Declare (2024) Regenerative Design Primer
• World Business Council on Sustainable Development (2025) Sowing change: EU Policy Opportunities to Scale Regenerative Agriculture

Recommended accessible / popular books:

• Krznaric, R. (2020). The good ancestor: How to think long term in a short-term world. Random House.
• Raworth, K. (2018). Doughnut economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. Chelsea Green Publishing.
• Thomas, L. (2022). The intersectional environmentalist: How to dismantle systems of oppression to protect people+ planet. Souvenir Press.
• Tsing, A. L. (2018) The Mushroom at the End of the World. On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Princeton University Press, Princeton/Oxford.

Key journal articles setting out definitions, frameworks and approaches will be engaged with including:

• Camrass, K. (2020). Regenerative futures. foresight, 22(4), 401-415.
• Mang, P., & Reed, B. (2020). Regenerative development and design. Sustainable built environments, 115-141. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0684-1_303
• McPhearson, T., Cook, E. M., Berbés-Blázquez, M., Cheng, C., Grimm, N. B., Andersson, E., ... & Troxler, T. G. (2022). A social-ecological-technological systems framework for urban ecosystem services. One Earth, 5(5), 505-518. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2022.04.007
• Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S. E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E. M., ... & Sörlin, S. (2015). Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. science, 347(6223), 1259855. https://doi.org.10.1126/science.1259855

Interdisciplinary

This module aims to enable students to:

• Develop an inter- and transdisciplinary-informed understanding of contemporary environmental concerns and responses
• Demonstrate a strong capacity to connect different approaches to regenerative development across diverse social, disciplinary and professional contexts

Subject specific skills

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Understand a diversity of theories and practices of regenerative development
• Critically appraise regenerative responses to environmental and social issues
• Apply theories of regenerative development to concrete disciplinary, and professional contexts
• Identify innovation in regenerative approaches and their significance for tackling emerging environmental and social challenges

Transferable skills

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Think critically, creatively and independently in relation to a particular thematic area of the student’s choice;
• Meet regular deadlines;
• Demonstrate time-management skills;
• Demonstrate problem solving skills;
• Demonstrate independent learning skills;
• Participate in class discussions;
• Demonstrate and practice presentation skills;
• Present and report on group discussions;
• Experience and participate in both individual and team-based activities.