REGENESIS

Back in 2023, when I published The Regenesis Journey (amazon.com.au), I suggested that the regeneration of Australia as a sustainable, vibrant, multicultural and socially justice society, should rest on three pillars:

1. Caring for Country—a bridge that unites Indigenous knowledge systems with the Western sciences of ecology, with resultant changes in nature conservation and restoration, agricultural practices, and management of fire and floods
2. Multiculturalism—inclusive of all ethnicities, religious faith traditions, and gender diversity, plus addressing historical injustices and racial profiling in the criminal justice system against First Nations people
3. A Circular Wellbeing Economy—redesigning industrial activity to zero waste and zero pollution, relying on renewable energy resources, and reorganising budget expenditure and accountability to deliver equitable wellbeing to people and their communities.

Our journey towards regenesis is very mixed.  We continue to struggle with a commitment to Caring for Country in its fullest sense, particularly acknowledging and embracing the wealth of insights recorded in Australia’s First Nations’ knowledge systems. This despite the wonderful work of Indigenous academics in mapping this out for us. Particularly the excellent series, First Knowledges, edited by Margo Neale of the National Museum of Australia. And yet, we are increasingly aware that some of the core Western assumptions about our place in the universe are driving us inexorably over the cliff of cascading and intersecting global crises that are threatening the very viability of human life on Earth.

Our proud claim to be truly multicultural is still a work in progress, with many followers of the grievance politics of One Nation now trying to take us back to the ‘dark ages’ of the White Australia Policy’; to John Howard’s idea of our history that denies the truth of the devastation wrought on First Nations peoples by the systematic processes of expropriation, exclusion and marginalisation that characterised European settlement by the early British colonisers.

On the economic front, the move towards a wellbeing economy, whereby progress is measured by community wellbeing, not GDP, is an even slower work in progress. The housing crisis is intractable. Wealth inequality continues to grow, and this continues to feed anxiety, grievance and loss of trust in democracy as a political system of governance. However there has been some slow progress towards more circularity in the design and functioning of our economy.

WHAT IS CIRCULARITY

Circularity and the circular economy are increasingly seen as offering a pathway to a better & fairer society, whilst addressing many of the world’s most pressing challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, pollution and inequality.

Imagine living in a world that isn’t all about taking, making & wasting.

A place where people, the economy and the planet all thrive together, and where the materials needed to make that happen never become waste at all, and nature is regenerated, rather than depleted, along the way.

This is the kind of world that circularity and the circular economy can help create and is a world that is increasingly being pursued by individuals, communities, businesses, institutions and governments all around the world.

Circularity creates ‘a restorative & regenerative economic model focused on resource re-use and waste elimination – a model that decouples economic growth from the depletion of finite resources and ultimately leads to the creation of a global circular economy that replaces the current throwaway linear economic model of take-make-waste’.

The circular economy is based on three simple and practical principles, driven by design:

1. Eliminate waste and pollution.
   https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/eliminate-waste-and-pollution
2. Circulate products and materials at their highest value for as long as possible.
   https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circulate-products-and-materials
3. Regenerate natural and social systems.
   https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/regenerate-nature

Underpinned by a transition to renewable energy and materials, the circular economy is a resilient system that is good for business, people, and the environment.’

ANCIENT ROOTS OF CIRCULARITY

Despite often being talked about as ‘a new solution’, circularity is actually a way for humans to live productively and sustainably that has been successfully practised for millennia, in a whole host of different ways.

If you take Australia, for example, then how the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples lived in balance with the landscape prior to European settlement, efficiently using what they needed to survive and caring for country is a great example of circularity in action. An example of circularity that, it can be argued, operated successfully across the Australian continent for more than 60,000 years.

More recently, modern society was still operating in a more circular way as recently as the mid 20^th Century, when we remained highly skilled at making the most of the resources we had and using and re-using materials in smart and thoughtful ways. Think of your grandparents or great grandparents repairing their clothes or fixing the family radio – all simple examples of what living according to circularity principles looks like.

BEGA CIRCULAR VALLEY UPDATE

One place where the community is putting these ideas into action is in Djiringani Country on the South Coast of NSW in the Bega Valley. Developed and led by the Regional Circularity Co-operative Limited (RCC), the program aims to help guide the Bega Valley’s transition to become Australia’s most circular regional economy by 2030 and then target becoming a world leading circular region by 2050. This transformational shift towards circularity will make the Bega Valley an even more vibrant, sustainable and resilient community for all those who live, work and visit here.

The RCC has also been leading the National Circularity Centre project – a landmark initiative that will see Australia’s world-leading circular destination for curious minds open its doors in the heart of the Bega Valley from the middle of 2026.

The RCC has been developing its road to circularity through the following actions:

• Highlighting circularity at the 150th Far South Coast National Show (aka the Bega Show)
• Spreading the story at the Harvest Riverina Conferencein Wagga Wagga
• Participating in the circular materials workshop with the SMaRT Centre@UNSW
• Collaborating with the BusinessCouncil of Co-operatives and Mutuals (BCCM) roundtable
• Starting the foundational works for the National Circularity Centre.

To find out more, read these documents:

• + Creating the World’s Most Circular Valley (summary).
• + Creating the World’s Most Circular Valley (full document).
• + National Circularity Centre ‘Opportunity’ Document.