ABSTRACT
The past economies were based on the extraction and consumption of natural resources. Ideologically, overexploitation instead of value creation was legitimized by systemic constraints. Natural capital was converted into financial capital and our future chances were massively damaged. A new paradigm emerges – a regenerative economy. The fashionable circular economy doesn’t promise any systemic rescue, but merely the technological optimization of the predominant exploitative economy. Only the restoration of the planet’s degraded biocapacity can provide true sustainability. Embedded in a regeneration-oriented economy, circulation provides important methodological elements, together with ecosystem restoration, economic transformation, and the elimination of life-destroying externalizations. A peaceful and pluralistic, just and solidary, ecologically resilient and culturally vital future needs a shift towards a regenerative economy.
