Although the practical tools to reverse climate change are already available, to date the scale to which they have been implemented is insufficient. For regenerative development to realize its full potential, it requires vision and concerted collaborative action. In 2016, with the advice of Global Village Institute and scores of other contributors, the Commonwealth of Nations took this up. With 52 member countries and almost a third of the world’s population (over 60% of which are under 30 years old), the Commonwealth is highly representative of the world’s peoples and ecosystems.

 

The Common Earth agenda is specifically tailored to the capacities of the Commonwealth nations, which can, working together, deliver the necessary direction and scale of action to lead an effort to reverse climate change.

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Like the Commonwealth itself, the strength of regenerative development lies in its capacity for diversity. The experts we gathered were clear in their recommendation that the Commonwealth will have most impact as a driver of change by designing elegant solutions carefully adapted to the unique conditions of local cultures and ecosystems. Effective change will not be achieved through abstract, catch-all, lowest common denominator initiatives dictated from the top-down. For this reason, efforts to build local capacity are paramount.