Regenerative Diet Coke™
What might a corporate-led regenerative movement look like?
This is a Growth scenario, one of four archetypal scenarios described in IFTF ’s ‘Alternative Future Scenarios’ toolkit. It explores a future of continuous economic and technological progress. Innovations flourish, and societies embrace new technologies and practices that drive prosperity (for some). Growth scenarios have winners and losers, bringing numerous challenges like growing inequality and environmental degradation; they don’t ignore that ‘green growth’ might not be possible (see why here, here and here).
Regeneration? A patchwork of rhetoric and action
Imagine that in 2040, every supermarket in the UK has a plethora of products on their shelves claimed to be ‘regenerative’, including all your favourite brands.
Some brands are genuinely catalysing a shift to a regenerative food system. However, the claims made by many corporations about the transformative impact of their products don’t always line up with reality. The food products available on supermarket shelves are of questionable integrity and broadly fall into one of four categories.1
Type A: Transformative deep regeneration
Some leading organisations, including a mixture of newer 'regenerative native' brands and more traditional brands, took radical approaches to work with farmers and the rest of their supply chains, collaborating to (re)design their entire product portfolios for what works best for nature.
These products helped to achieve the transformational regeneration of agricultural landscapes. Monocultures were replaced by diverse multifunctional polycultures yielding diverse annual and perennial crops, with agroforestry and animals integrated throughout. This has created resilient and thriving agroecosystems, restoring soil health, sequestering carbon and enhancing biodiversity whilst allowing humans to flourish.
Farmers have become stewards of the land, guided by holistic management principles that consider the interconnectedness of ecological, social, and economic factors. Place-based cooperatives have formed, dealing with brands collectively to ensure that decisions benefit the broader community long-term, revitalising rural economies; the vanguard of emergent bioregionalism.
All of this is only possible with a long-term approach involving collaboration between farmers and corporations or with support mechanisms like finance, technical assistance and knowledge transfer.2 A more supportive policy environment would also make things easier; hence, why many companies do not do this and set the bar for what counts as ‘regeneration’ much lower.
About 10% of food products in 2040 are in this category.
Type B: Shallow regeneration
Many more food products in supermarkets are also claimed to be ‘regenerative’, based on a more shallow conception of what that means. They are made of ingredients grown using better practices, for example, minimal tillage or incorporating diverse green manures. Whilst these practices improve farm outcomes against many metrics compared to extractive industrial agriculture (see below), the results are more incremental, based on either minimising harm or achieving a ‘net zero’ negative impact.
Many crops are still grown in monocultures (albeit perhaps with green manures, intercropping or even some forms of agroforestry). Most are still sold as commodities, reliant on external inputs, even if the inputs are used more efficiently. Farm finances improve, but individual farms, rather than landscapes, are the focus.
Undoubtedly, producing food in this way is better than industrial agriculture. Still, it's not true ‘regeneration’ but rather a rebranded form of shallow sustainability based on minimising harm rather than reimagining human relationships with nature. The same corporate power dynamics remain; justice and equity are mostly unaddressed.
These make up about 40% of food products in 2040. Brands are not necessarily hiding how ingredients are produced; their bar for what counts as ‘regenerative’ is much lower. Many of the standards and certifications in 2040 cater towards this form of agriculture because it’s easier to define, regulate and measure against.
Progress, but is it enough?
Type C: Regen-washing
Despite marketing claims that they are a ‘regenerative’ company (or working towards becoming one), some multinational corporations are bad-faith actors, never going beyond making voluntary commitments, which they don't stick to. These false claims are a new form of greenwashing: ‘regen-washing’.3
At best, these ingredients are sourced from farms producing in the Ecomodernist paradigm4; sustainable intensification, efficient use of inputs using precision farming, reduction of GHG, and more mechanisation. It's incrementalist and about doing less harm, but more is needed. It is the equivalent of driving towards a cliff edge, taking your foot off the accelerator but not turning the steering wheel or using the brakes.
At worst, ingredients are sourced from extractive industrial agriculture (see below).
These make up about 10% of products in 2040. This percentage used to be higher and is still falling due to improved mandatory blockchain traceability and increasing regulation on sustainability claims in advertising, making false claims more difficult. However, the consumer experience remains chaotic and challenging to decipher.
Type D: Extractive industrial agriculture
Forms of agriculture that focus on maximising yields and short-term economic profitability whilst ignoring environmental or social consequences persist. However, industrial agriculture relies on increasingly expensive inputs like fossil fuels and chemical fertilisers, continues to deplete soil health and is much less resilient to the impacts of climate change. These ingredients are often imported, so ignoring the negative externalities is easier.
These make up about 40% of products in 2040, though a tipping point may be approaching.
A confusing consumer experience
Products from all four categories are available in every supermarket, from fresh fruit and vegetables to processed, packaged goods. Confusingly, however, most multinational corporations have product portfolios containing a mixture of Types B-D. It’s not unusual for multinational corporations to have a handful of pilot projects or ‘flagship’ products from Type A, that get a lot of attention in their marketing but make up a tiny fraction of their overall product portfolio.
This makes it difficult for consumers to make informed choices and to tell the veracity of corporate claims. Detractors argue that the ubiquitous use of ‘regenerative’ to describe food products is the latest in a long line of watered-down buzzwords that have lost their original meaning.
“Going to the supermarket these days is overwhelming; information overload. I’m pretty informed as a consumer, but what ‘regenerative’ means is still confusing. There are so many different labels and certifications for nutrition and environmental and social impacts. How can I choose when one chocolate bar has lower carbon emissions than the other but worse labour conditions? How do I even know when the claims are genuine or not?
I tend to trust the products with an AR (augmented reality) story you can watch when shopping that shows all their traceability data on the blockchain because I don’t think you can fake that.
I want to support regenerative products with my wallet, but they’re still more expensive than the others, and I can’t afford it every time.”
Supermarket customer, 2040
A shallow ‘regenerative’ food system
Despite significant progress, in 2040, the economic and policy environment for regenerative agriculture in the UK remains siloed, hindering the transformation to a diverse and inclusive food system.
Small food thrives but remains small
A vibrant small-food regenerative (agroecological) movement also thrives against this corporate backdrop. This network of small-scale farmers practises transformative regeneration very similar to that described above. The primary difference, apart from the size of their farms, is that rather than collaborating with and selling to corporations, they sell directly to consumers, which fosters a direct, transparent relationship between producers and consumers, promoting local food sovereignty by developing foodsheds. It also means they don’t have access to the same support mechanisms, relying on alternative sources for finance and technical support like peer-to-peer networks.
In 2040, more people purchase at least some of their food through alternative models like community-supported agriculture (CSA) or from farmer's markets than ever before. However, despite increasing grassroots popularity, these small producers still exist within a system favouring corporations and larger-scale farmers, meaning that their products are often more expensive and thus unaffordable to all (see below). The British food system is still dominated by corporate forces, with ~80% of the food prepared at home purchased from the largest eight supermarkets, down from ~93% in 2018.5
A (un)supportive policy environment?
The regenerative agriculture boom of the early 2020s6 was described as ‘dynamic but piecemeal… operating in the same silos as the status quo, isolated by commodity or sector, not reflecting the diverse farm landscapes that will make up a regenerative future’.7 A lot of progress has been made since then, however, unfortunately, this still rings true in 2040.
Well-intentioned efforts to create a standardised framework for measuring, monitoring, reporting and verifying (MVR) regenerative outcomes like carbon sequestration and biodiversity persist. Many more ambitious corporations (those selling Type A products) conduct MVR for these metrics as part of their commitments to become ‘regenerative companies’.
However, in 2040, it is still not mandatory for every actor in the food system to conduct MVR against these metrics, partly due to the absence of a unified authority. Reconciling the context-dependency of regeneration and the needs and realities of various stakeholders, from small-scale farmers to large-scale industrial agriculture operations, has proven too arduous.
The Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS), a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme developed post-Brexit, has evolved substantially since the early 2020s. Developments in low-cost sensor technology and other Ag Tech have aided a new flow of ‘public money for public goods’ to farmers, notably for carbon sequestration. Measuring biodiversity, – in its infancy in the early 2020s, – is now much more sophisticated with developments in eDNA, acoustics, AI and other fields. However, The ELMS payment system has yet to catch up with this data-rich approach fully.
Although these payments are available to all farms regardless of scale, the pricing mechanism heavily favours larger-scale farms. Further, critics argue that the payments are too low or that the criteria for receiving payments are not ambitious enough, based on a relatively reductionist and top-down approach to ‘regeneration’.
A recurrent theme that underpins the unambitious policy environment is that the social cost of carbon is priced too low. Furthermore, efforts to build in True Cost Accounting to set food prices that reflect the actual societal costs and benefits of extractive industrial agriculture and regenerative agriculture, respectively, have stalled.
Subsidies for extractive agriculture continue to create an uneven playing field.8 Even as some subsidies have been reallocated to more regenerative production methods, historical silos and power dynamics have been challenging to break down.
Finally, plentiful private finance flowed into regenerative agriculture. They mostly focus on providing transition financing for farmers, funds to purchase agricultural land and investments in Ag Tech from venture capitalists. These investments were critical in making many examples of transformational regeneration possible.9
However, much like with companies, the integrity of investors is varied. The main benefactors from many other investors were larger-scale farms doing ‘shallow regeneration’. Investments in the wider supply chain, like processing, distribution and other less visible elements, have also been neglected, which has acted as a barrier to more systemic change –- a phenomenon dubbed by some as ‘upstream disease’.10 Small-scale farms remain chronically underfunded.
Better, but not enough?
Whilst there are pockets of companies and farmers practising regeneration with great integrity, the radical vision for a just and equitable transformation that many had hoped for has yet to happen at a systemic level.
The current economic paradigm makes it difficult for genuinely regenerative companies to thrive.11 It hinders long-term thinking, collaboration and cooperation, instead favouring short-termism and the accumulation of wealth and power. Daniel Christian Wahl has written extensively about how we need to reimagine the purpose of businesses and embrace regeneration to foster resilience and interconnectivity. He suggests that this shift involves redefining success and value, moving from purely financial metrics to a more comprehensive evaluation considering ecological, social, and cultural well-being.
Consumption as a primary driver of ecological collapse needs to be addressed. Ultra-processed foods that cause health issues still comprise many retailers' and brands' portfolios, even if the ingredients used to make them are grown more regeneratively. The average diet remains misaligned with agroecosystem carrying capacities.
Historic inequalities within the food system have yet to be overcome. The paradox of eliminating exploitation and paying all labour in the value chain a living wage whilst keeping food affordable is yet to be resolved. Unequal access to affordable, nutritious food is a significant problem, with the UK seemingly existing within a cost-of-living crisis for decades. Historically marginalised neighbourhoods, predominantly inhabited by low-income individuals and minority groups, remain disproportionately affected.
Migrant workers, increasingly desperate due to mass climate displacement, remain vulnerable to exploitation on industrial farms, risking being subjected to low wages, long hours, inadequate living conditions and even modern slavery.
Major land reform didn’t happen, as it was considered too politically toxic. Access to affordable land continues to exclude most prospective new entrants to farming, as ~1% of the population still owns more than half of the land area of England.12
A fork in the road
Many multinational corporations remained profitable through the 2020s and early 2030s, even as climate shocks impacted core ingredients for their products. Since then, extractive industrial agricultural supply chains have appeared increasingly less resilient, and profits are taking hits. A tipping point may finally be about to be crossed, as regenerative production seems much more resilient to shocks.
This period is a critical juncture. From here, several unresolved tensions could lead to very different futures, depending on how they play out in the next few years:
Will more multinational corporations increase their ambition towards a deeper form of regeneration, ditching extractive industrial agriculture altogether?
What is the long-term role of multinational corporations in the food system? Are they ideal catalysts for transformation due to their size and power within the existing system? Or are they preventing transformative, just and equitable change?
Can the challenges of building a policy and financial support system with an appropriate ambition level be overcome?
How will the thriving small food regenerative movements reach more people, providing a more significant share of food eaten in the UK?
Will the tension between paying everyone a living wage throughout the food value chain a living wage and keeping food affordable and accessible be resolved?
These four categories were partially inspired by Ethan Soloviev’s 'Paradigms of Agriculture’, though for the purpose of this article I have proposed somewhat different classifications. I recommend Ethan’s paper as an excellent exploration of differing ambition levels within the space. Link.
This category is based on what products would look like if they enacted the recommendations of ‘The Big Food Redesign’ with great integrity. Link.
‘Feeding Britain’ (Professor Tim Lang)
‘Options for reforming agricultural subsidies from health, climate, and economic perspectives’ (Springmann and Freud). Link.