Roots to regenerative impact

Abstract

In the current fast-fashion regime, clothes are produced according to a linear economic model that continuously accelerates the cycles of take-make-waste. This has increasingly negative impacts on social and natural systems, causing concerns and desires to change this dominant way of producing and consuming clothing.
The practice of regenerative fashion offers a solution for making fashion that is good, causing positive impacts for the communities and ecosystems in which this practice is based. The regenerative philosophy is bound to place, leaving everything better than it was found.
For Dutch fashion designer Joline Jolink, the regenerative way of making fashion offers new opportunities to practice her job and passion in alignment with her personal values, especially by not contributing to the collective negative industry impact. With the founding of the Fashion Farm, she is mobilizing regenerative fashion in the Dutch apparel market and industry.
In order to increase her positive impact, she needs support from stakeholders to build capacity for her mission and enterprise. To establish meaningful relationships with stakeholders, she needs to communicate her goals, actions, and impact. This has led to the foundational purpose of this thesis, mainly trying to find answers to the problem/question:
‘How can she monitor and communicate her impact to stakeholders and internally in a transparent way in order to efficiently and effectively mobilize her mission further?’
To investigate this problem space and to design a tangible solution to support regenerative-driven entrepreneurs in monitoring and communicating impact, the Double Diamond method is put into practice. Through the adoption of sustainable transition theories and the Frame Innovation method, a well-rounded foundation was established before going into the solution space. After this, in-context, learning-by-doing baseline monitoring and reporting interventions were conducted. With both insights from the problem space and insights from the interventions, a strategic tool was designed that aims both to overcome the identified obstacles and to unlock new opportunities for stakeholders regarding impact monitoring and communication.
The main function of the tool is to enable internal, integrated documenting, planning, strategizing, and executing impact monitoring and communication. Next to this, the tool aims to establish increased collaboration, shared understanding, and responsibility in impact monitoring and communication in order to collectively accelerate the sustainability transition.
Besides, the tool advocates for communicating the ‘whole story’ of the intentions and actions of regenerative businesses. Lastly, the tool ensures—through the use of AI and automated activities—that organizations can internally perform impact monitoring and communication tasks in an effective and efficient manner. The ongoing feedback-looping system guarantees that fertile data is captured and fruitful insights are used to modify or redirect actions towards more positive effects.
Nevertheless, it is still difficult to mobilize regenerative businesses in the current economic space. The increased significance of impact monitoring and communication to enhance transparency and accountability is a good start, but it takes collective action on all levels of the system to create significant, long-lasting change, impact.