In April 2021 when Avery & Brown was just 10 months old, I shared this post announcing our intention of becoming a regenerative business - one which gives back more to society and the planet than what it takes from them.

Much to my surprise, people went nuts for my quick and dirty iPad sketch of a regenerative business 'mind map'. The handwritten nature of the picture seemed to appeal to people - perhaps because it seemed more accessible and less like a piece of sales collateral than if it had been professionally designed. People also learn and absorb information in different ways, so I think it resonated with other visual learners like me.

So... Yep, you guessed it. I've kept the hand-drawn style and completely updated it into the absolute beast you can see below. Keep scrolling, my friends!

Bollocks to being a 'sustainable business'. The climate crisis rages on. "Do less harm" / "do no harm" just aren't enough any more. Sustainability is too passive. We need to set our sights on regeneration."

Russ Avery, April 2021

(LinkedIn post)

A future we choose

Collectively, we're deciding whether we live on a habitable planet which can continue to sustain us, or whether we take our chances and live with what scientists describe as being hell on Earth.

If you think I'm being dramatic or alarmist, then you simply don't understand the future (or lack of one) which awaits us if we fail to take the action required to turn things around. We needed to take action decades ago, but we didn't. This means it isn't just the eleventh hour, it's 11:59. We simply must step up to avoid a future which would be unbearable for billions.

So, we all have a pretty easy question to ask ourselves. "Do I (and my business) want to do whatever I can to be a part of the solution, or am I happy to be an observer and hope that someone else fixes the problem?" Now, if you're reading these words, I'm willing to bet you're not the kind of person who is happy to sit by and wait for someone else to fix things. Right?!

Whether you're at the very start of your journey, unsure what the first step is, or you've already made some good progress but you're not sure which areas of the business to look at next, or you feel like you've 'plateau-ed' a bit... hopefully this mind map has something for you. After all, unless you're doing absolutely everything listed on it, then there are still more things you could consider. I hope you'll agree this is a great free resource - we would have loved to have seen something like this 18 months ago when we started out.

Please download it. Save it. Zoom in. Read through it. Check out the companies, organisations, websites, books and other resources which are mentioned. Then forward it to a friend or colleague and encourage them to do the same.

And if you want to really make me smile - please come and let me know in the comments of this post what you think of it and what positive action it has inspired you to take. It would be awesome to try and follow the collective impact this helps to create.

Let's do this! 🌍 💙

PS - There's another reason I think the mind map style works well, and why I'm not going to type out all the information into a long list full of hyperlinks, etc. - and that's because it draws you in. By not knowing what you're looking for and not being able to quickly scan it, it means you are far more likely to end up reading the whole thing and therefore discovering something you hadn't heard of yet, or getting inspiration for something new to do as part of your journey. But don't worry - lots of blog posts about individual areas of this map will be published over the coming weeks and months!

Disclaimer: Over 25 companies, organisations, websites, books etc. are mentioned in the mind map. I cannot vouch personally for every single one of them. We use some of them as a business, but not all of them. Others are ones we have discovered while on our own journey, or who we have heard others speak positively about. Please make sure you always do your own due diligence before engaging with any business or organisation and only use the mind map as a guide to help you on your journey.

Tech issues? Hopefully the mind map will open in a new tab when you click the image and you should be able to see it in full size. You should also be able to Zoom in, download it and save it to your own device for future use. If the image doesn't work, try this link. If nothing works, feel free to get in touch and we'll try and help!

Please share this Regenerative Business Mind Map far and wide. Friends, family, colleagues... We want as many people as possible to see it, benefit from it, and take positive action!