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Regenerative Action Compass

Transition Tool

Thinking and acting for urban resilience & vitality

Compasses guide us on a desired trajectory toward a sought-after location.  

The REGENERATIVE ACTION COMPASS guides us towards cultural systems  - ecosystems, energy and economic systems, community and urban environments, built environments - that are fit for this planet.

Our Ngā Tohu Mauri Ora COMPASS is a transition tool for urban regeneration and resilience.

The compass VISUALISES URBAN TRANSITIONS in five key regenerative areas of ecology, energy, economy, community and architecture.

The compass points users towards REGENERATIVE PRINCIPLES and PRAGMATIC ACTIONS that enable mauri ora, or social and ecological resilience and thriving.

COMMUNITIES CAN CO-DESIGN THEIR OWN COMPASS using the compass kit-of-parts to meet their own neighbourhood or community-specific needs and form regenerative action plans.

Ecology

Wai Ora, Whenua Ora

Ecology is the first ring of the REGENERATIVE ACTION COMPASS. The Ecology circle emphasises how green and blue ecosystems sustain urban resilience and wellbeing, and wider planetary life-support systems.

Ecological vitality needs to be at the centre of urban policy, design and development to see cities thrive.

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Energy

Hihiri-Ora

The REGENERATIVE ENERGY circle is about moving cities away from climate-changing, carbon-based energy, towards a renewable and zero-carbon energy outlook.

Reshaping cities into a zero-carbon energy system will promote climate stability, increase local resilience, and improve human and wider ecological wellbeing.

Economy

Ōhanga-Ora

The REGENERATIVE ECONOMY circle focuses on the advancement of circular bio-based systems. This means adding 'RETHINK & REGENERATE' to 'reuse, remake, recycle' in every aspect of urban life-cycles, material-cycles, and production processes.

Having a circular resource-to-resource approach ensures we’re respecting the limitations or boundaries of what our planet can provide, and ensuring that our cultural systems are integrating with the ongoing regenerative capacities of the living world.

Community

Hapori-Ora

The Community circle of the REGENERATTIVE ACTION COMPASS encompasses the design and development of highly connected and locally resourced urban environments. This impacts how socially connected we are, how much energy we use for transport, how physical activity is supported with bike paths and walkable neighbourhoods, and how ecological diversity and urban agriculture can enhance neighbourhood resilience, food security, and biophilia.

Creating vibrant, accessible spaces that connect communities spatially, socially, culturally and ecologically improves urban thriving and resilience.

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Architecture

Whare-Ora

The innermost COMPASS circle brings the regenerative ecology, energy, economy and community strategies to bear in the smaller scale of a building.

Our buildings and built environments can be regenerative environments that incorporate green and blue ecosystems for resilience and social and ecological wellbeing. They can  be designed for disassembly, use circular non-toxic materials that can be returned to the soil, generate local renewable energy, and be designed for community connection through shared space.

The purpose of the compass

Compasses guide us on a desired trajectory to a sought-after location.  

THE REGENERATIVE COMPASS GUIDES US TOWARDS CULTURAL SYSTEMS - ecosystems, energy and economic systems, community and urban environments, built environments - THAT ARE FIT FOR THIS PLANET.

Our current industrial culture isn't designed to work on a living planet.

We have degraded the life-support systems of this living world by mass forest clearances for cities, industry and agriculture, and wide-spread over-fishing and polluting of our precious oceans. Our carbon-emitting energy systems have raised atmospheric carbon, heating the skies, and causing climate chaos.  Our take-make-waste economic systems have polluted and extracted from the earth, skies and sea. Our contemporary cities have been designed for cars, and are obesogenic, filled with junk industrial food, and unwalkable.

WE CAN DO BETTER, WE CAN BE SMARTER, WE CAN MAKE CULTURAL SYSTEMS THAT ARE FIT FOR A PLANET.  

THE COMPASS GUIDES US TOWARDS REGENERATIVE SYSTEM CHANGE FOR AN ECOLOGISED CULTURE.

It provides guiding principles and a structure - ecosystems, energy and economic systems, community and urban environments, built environments.

It offers a range of actions for regenerative change that will benefit you, your community, and the living world we rely on - for everything!

YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY CAN MAKE YOUR OWN COMPASS, DEFINING THE REGENERATIVE ACTIONS THAT MAKE SENSE FOR YOU.

See below for the COMPASS KIT-OF-PARTS with:
1. the COMPASS that identifies URBAN TRANSITION AREAS and REGENERATIVE PRINCIPLES
2. and the REGENERATIVE ACTIONS that you can define to suit your local needs

“Creating a compass has been an important part of our planning process, we now have a fuller understanding of the wellbeing needs of our communities.”
Sue – City Planner, Christchurch City Council.

Arrange a workshop with us
Make contact to  arrange a COMPASS workshop with us if you and your neighbourhood or community want to build collective agreements and define actions to improve your local food security, flood resilience, social connection or biodiversity.
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