My Standards for Regenerative Villages

My must-haves and my nice-to-haves

Well,

BioHarmony

has me pinned, and I thought this would be a great follow up to the article I just shared ranking my top 10 favorite regenerative villages.

It’s true that I set certain standards for:

1. What allows a project to claim being regenerative

2. What features villages of the future should have

3. Whether the project is just an idea and how many people it gives a sustainable place to call home

And I want to clarify that I mostly haven’t found any existing village that is the best combination of where I want to live geographically, the people I want to share space with, and the futuristic features that I think should set it apart.

This does not mean that there is not an abundance of communities that you would be over the moon to call home. If you simply want to move to a village, check Tribes, GEN, FIC, and Community Finders to scout for eco-communities, or check out my newly formed list of ecovillages you can currently buy a house or land in.

So, let me talk about the standards that I think all regenerative villages should have, citing some literature that informs these standards. Then I’ll share a little about my ideal community, and touch on the village I am currently designing.

This Is Not Comprehensive

We could create an entire taxonomy of the components that a village should have, which is what I have been working on for other projects, but this is a humble article and can only cover so much.

Instead of covering everything that a village should consider, I will talk about my personal must-haves, nice-to-haves, and must-not-haves.

Some of these will seem flowery and poetic — who is going to argue with compassionate economies or avoiding exploitation — so the real value comes in sharing how to implement those things, which is the purpose of Terrenity’s ongoing research and exploration in these topics.

Morpho butterfly at Mother Tree community in Tulum

Must Have

Placemaking & Indigeneity: We need a culture that fosters a deep-rooted sense of our place as a species. Our role is to tend to our relationship with the land and communicate with our ecosystem on a profound level of understanding and intimacy. This makes responsible stewardship our second nature.

Work from one of my favorite artists, Mia Ohki

A Regenerative Ethos: The mantra “leave a place better than you found it” is simple yet profound. It covers everything from tidying up a kitchen to restoring the health of an entire rainforest and leaving abundance for future generations. It umbrellas other concepts — circularity, living systems, permaculture, etc.— necessary to create a better life on earth.

Self-sufficient infrastructure: A regenerative system is like a mature forest. It needs no external inputs to continue to sustain itself. Relying on energy, food, water, or waste management from outside sources weakens a community’s resilience.

Biomimicry: Whether it manifests in architecture, tech design, or social relationships, this branch of science coined by Janine Benyus is spectacularly elegant. For example, if our economy was designed as a mature forest, there would no such thing as waste.

Fun fact: biomimicry copies the function of something found in nature, while biophilia copies the form or aesthetic. So your leaf-shaped buildings are biophilic, not biomimetic (unless the leaf shape serves a similar function)

Prosocial Frameworks: Greed, violence, and crime could be considered “anti-social” behaviors. To relate to each other positively, we need frameworks that act as a trellis and guide us as we grow into better humans. This manifests in fair governance, compassionate economies, and networks of mutual care. It also requires a diverse, accessible, inclusive, and equitable community. Obviously.

Intergenerational: Each stage of human life has value. Normal society leaves us dissociated at various times of our lives — lost without the care, guidance, or love we need. In villages, we can create layers of meaning without fractures between generations. Living in multigenerational communities teaches us to respect the wisdom that flows in all directions.

also Mia Ohki

Nice to Have

(but doesn’t define if it’s “regenerative” or not for me)

Decentralized Tech: Whether it’s web3 or cryptocurrency or blockchain-based governance, there is so much potential in this space that can be (and is being) leveraged inside of regenerative villages, or ReFi villages as

Monty bryant

refers to them. The ideology of decentralization is very aligned with the principles of regeneration, but it is possible to achieve regenerative community without it.

Systems Exit: In my opinion, regenerative villages are an exit-based strategy. As we talk about societal redesign, the easiest way to achieve this is shedding the weight of society-with-a-capital-S and creating our own startup societies (i.e. network state, startup city, SEZ). Villages can still explore adding layers of meaning within existing state frameworks via coordi-nations.

Modernity: Quality of life and comfort that is equal to or better than a modern household. It is understandable that projects may not offer this in the initial years, but regen villages should be a time machine forward, not backward. We commonly call it the pursuit of ancient futures — tribal wisdom in a modern web of meaning.

Must Not Have

Question: What are the pitfalls unique to regenerative villages?

Coercion/Dogma: In most places, the state coerces the populace to do what it wants. Just because you are at village scale does not mean the same thing won’t happen.

Exploitation: Common exploitation in communities looks like overworking volunteers, using seniority to dominate or sexually prey on others, or using cheap local labor in a foreign country without making space for them to be part of the community themselves. F#%k that.

Ethnocentrism or Anthropocentrism: We used to think Earth was at the center of everything, and then we learned. Maybe we will also learn that as humans we are only at the center of everything in our minds. One cultural background is no more inherently right or superior to others, and consciousness comes in all forms.

Wastefulness: Many things can be wasted. Besides the obvious plastic trash, there is time, talent, energy, opportunity, and resources. If for example, a community receives many enthusiastic guests who contribute value, but get burnt out because there’s no clear system, then there’s a leak in your pipeline. If anything, regenerative communities should be removing waste.

Read Terrenity’s ECO-LOGIC story on Regen Tribe’s first community project, using plastic bricks to build stunning and luxurious superadobe buildings.

Escapism/Isolationism: Projects that retreat to a corner of the world that is seemingly “untouched” by the systems that they are reinventing essentially fail to take responsibility for the potential global impact they can have by sharing their learnings and cultivating relationships with similar projects. Future villages are deeply interconnected.

My tangible standards

Here are some of my foundational texts for regenerative [village] design principles

Regen Tribe’s Regenerative Village Rubric (in development)

Regenesis Group’s Regenerative Development and Design: A Framework for Evolving Sustainability

OASA’s Principles of Regeneration and Land Stewardship

Regenerative Futures: Eight Principles for Thinking and Practice

Bounce Beyond Futures Thinking Toolkit

Prosocial World’s Processes

Please comment below any of your favorite literature/resources on regenerative principles.

My Ideal Village Doesn’t Exist (Yet)

The universe has conspired to plop me into a professional partnership to design a regenerative longevity village in Sardinia, Italy.

I’ve consulted on village projects before, but this is an invitation to design one end-to-end.

It’s a dream project, all the way.

The details of the project are still private as we work on initial agreements and stakeholder analysis, but I will be sharing my journey of designing the village very publicly here on the substack, so that aspiring village builders and village consultants can track my methods.

In upcoming articles I will share more of my design process, as well as my visual inspiration boards.

Now it’s your turn, what makes a regenerative village ideal for you?

One of my affiliated partners, Community Finders, run by Cynthia Tina, offers services for people seeking ecovillages or building ecovillages. I highly recommend you join one of her courses to uplevel your ecovillage journey.

Use the code TERRENITY for $100 off your ecovillage tour.