Beyond Perfection

What Becoming Regenerative Actually Requires

Most people think ‘regenerative’ means perfection - completely circular, zero-waste, carbon-negative, ethically pure.

No wonder so few even want to try.

Because perfection is impossible. And the pursuit of purity, the idea that you must be purely regenerative or you’re not regenerative at all, misses the actual work.

It creates a binary that doesn’t exist in nature and can’t exist in business: you’re either extractive (bad) or regenerative (good), either depleting systems or restoring them, either part of the problem or part of the solution.

But living systems don’t work that way. And neither do businesses that are actually transforming.

Every Business Has a Metabolism

Here’s what most people miss: every business already has a metabolism.

It takes in energy, materials, relationships. Transforms them into products, services, value. Returns something to the world, hopefully more than waste.

Just like any organism. Just like a forest. Just like any living system.

The problem isn’t that businesses have metabolisms. The problem is that most of them are completely unconscious of their metabolism. They operate like machines extracting value, not organisms participating in life.

They don’t see themselves as embedded in living systems like watersheds, soil webs, atmospheric cycles, communities, ecosystems. They see themselves as separate, operating on resources rather than within them.

That unconsciousness is what makes extraction inevitable and invisible.

Extraction Isn’t the Enemy - Broken Cycles Are

Here’s what the purity narrative gets wrong: it positions extraction as the problem.

But every organism extracts. A forest extracts nutrients from soil. A wolf extracts deer from the herd. Your body extracts energy from food. Extraction is part of metabolism, part of life itself.

The question isn’t WHETHER you extract. It’s HOW.

Extractive extraction breaks renewal cycles:

• Taking faster than systems can regenerate

• Converting living systems into waste

• Operating blind to downstream impacts

• Treating relationships as transactions

Regenerative extraction participates in renewal cycles:

• Taking in ways that enable what’s taken to regenerate

• At rates that allow recovery and renewal

• In relationships that feed what can grow back

• Closing loops so outputs become inputs elsewhere

Think about it: does a wolf ‘extracting’ a deer destroy the herd or strengthen it?

That depends on which deer.. at what rate.. and in what relationship to the larger ecosystem.

Your business extracts. The work isn’t to stop extracting, it’s to transform HOW you extract, transform, and give back so you’re participating in life’s renewal instead of its depletion.

That’s a fundamentally different question than “Are you regenerative or not?”

What Regenerative Actually Means

The word “regenerative” gets used a lot of different ways these days, from agriculture to finance to design. Most definitions focus on outcomes: “restoring ecosystems,” “net positive impact,” “beyond sustainability.”

At Carom, we define it differently.

Regenerative means evolving your business so it continuously participates in the renewal of the systems it depends on - ecological, social, and economic.

Not “doing less harm.” Not “achieving net positive.” Not “offsetting extraction elsewhere.”

But fundamentally changing your relationship to life from operating ON living systems to operating WITHIN them. From extracting value to participating in renewal. From breaking cycles to closing them.

It’s a shift from:

• Managing parts → Stewarding relationships

• Efficiency → Vitality

• Profit as extraction → Profit as participation

• Machine thinking → Living systems thinking

This isn’t about achieving some perfect pure state. It’s about conscious evolution of your metabolism. Every day, with every decision, you’re either depleting or renewing. And becoming conscious of that is the first step.

Which brings us to how businesses actually make that shift.

The Four Stages of Metabolic Consciousness

Regeneration isn’t an absolute state you achieve. It’s a developmental journey of metabolic consciousness moving from unconscious extraction to conscious participation in renewal.

Most businesses move through four stages:

Stage 1: Unconscious Extraction

Operating as a machine, treating the world as resources to be optimized rather than living systems to participate in.

You might know you’re extracting by measuring carbon, tracking waste, managing environmental compliance. You might even know the specific harms. Oil companies know they’re depleting finite reserves. Miners know they’re removing mountains. Industrial agriculture knows soil is degrading.

But you don’t see yourself as part of living systems. You see yourself as separate, again operating ON nature rather than WITHIN it.

The “unconsciousness” isn’t about information. It’s about worldview. You’re unconscious of your participation in life’s metabolism, even if you’re highly conscious of your impacts.

Extraction is just business. The only question is efficiency, cost, compliance and not whether your metabolism depletes or renews the systems that sustain you.

This isn’t malicious. It’s just how most of our economy was designed.

Stage 2: Conscious Extraction

You’ve woken up. You see the harm your metabolism creates. You’re working to minimize damage by measuring carbon, reducing waste, improving labor practices, trying to do less harm.

This is the sustainability mindset. You’re still operating in extractive patterns, but now you’re aware. You’re trying to reduce impact, slow the depletion.

You recognize you’re part of living systems, but you’re still fundamentally taking from them. You’re managing your relationship to life, even if not yet participating in its renewal.

Most “sustainable” companies live here. It’s progress. But it’s not regeneration.

Stage 3: Participatory Metabolism

You’re beginning to shift. Some of your cycles are closing. Some of your relationships are regenerative. You’re working within existing systems but actively evolving how you extract, transform, and give back.

You’re not perfect. You’re practicing in the paradox as you operate in conventional markets while shifting from extractive patterns to regenerative ones.

You still extract. You still compete. You still make tradeoffs. But you’re consciously evolving which cycles you close, which relationships you build, which systems you feed.

This is where the real work happens. This is where most transforming businesses live.

Stage 4: Regenerative Metabolism

Your business actively contributes to the renewal of the systems it depends on. Your metabolism feeds life. You’re still extracting - you’re still a business after all - but you’re doing it in ways that participate in regeneration rather than depletion.

And it’s not perfect. It’s evolving. Conscious. Alive.

You’re closing loops, building soil, restoring watersheds, creating conditions for more life rather than less.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Let me show you what Participatory Metabolism actually looks like.

Pure Project is a craft brewery in San Diego. They’re celebrating their 10th anniversary in 2026, operating five taprooms across the city, and just achieved 150% growth in distribution over the last two years. They were named a “Rising Star” by Brewbound.

They’re not “pure”:

• They brew beer, which is inherently energy and water intensive

• They operate in competitive craft beer markets

• They ship products, package in cans, run events

• They’re scaling, growing, making profit

But they’re consciously evolving their metabolism:

• They source grain from Admiral Maltings, California’s only CCOF-certified regenerative malting operation

• Their spent grain becomes cattle feed at a local farm instead of going to landfill

• They’ve implemented water recapture and reuse systems

• They’re Climate Neutral certified and 1% for the Planet members since day one (over $500K donated to environmental organizations)

• They’re working toward zero waste, plastic neutral, and running their brewery on solar by 2030

They’re practicing in the paradox. Operating within existing systems - distribution channels, retail competition, market pressures - while actively shifting from extractive patterns to regenerative ones.

That’s not purity. That’s metabolic evolution.

Or take Heirloom Coffee Roasters.

• They roast coffee, an energy-intensive process.

• They ship products globally.

• They operate to retail locations.

• They compete in specialty coffee markets.

But

• They source exclusively from ROC-certified regenerative farms.

• They pay premiums that enable farmers to build soil health.

• They’ve helped support cooperative farms in Honduras that transformed rock-hard depleted clay into living soil.

• They make farmer faces and stories visible.

• They’re transparent about their full impact.

They’re not waiting for perfection. They’re evolving their metabolism one relationship, one farm, one decision at a time.

Both companies are in Stage 3: Participatory Metabolism. Consciously shifting cycles from extractive to regenerative while operating as real businesses in real markets.

Neither is ‘purely regenerative.’ Both are genuinely transforming.

The Metabolic Awakening

This transformation begins with what I call the Metabolic Awakening. That’s the moment a business recognizes itself as alive, embedded in living systems, accountable to them.

It’s the moment you stop seeing your company as a machine optimizing for efficiency and start seeing it as an organism participating in life’s flows.

That recognition is uncomfortable. Because once you see your metabolism, you can’t unsee it. Your ‘business model’ isn’t just a model anymore - it’s a living metabolism that either depletes the systems it depends on or participates in their renewal.

For Pure Project, that awakening happened early.. they were 1% for the Planet from day one. For others, it happens gradually, maybe on a farm visit that makes the farmers real, a waste audit that reveals the scale of what you discard, or a climate report that shows your contribution to atmospheric breakdown.

However it happens, the awakening is the first threshold. Moving from unconscious to conscious. From machine thinking to living systems thinking.

That’s where everything begins.

Why This Matters Now

The current regenerative discourse is stuck in an all-or-nothing frame that makes most businesses dismiss the work as impossible or irrelevant.

‘We can’t be perfectly circular.’
’We can’t achieve zero emissions tomorrow.’
’We’re not a small farm or a meditation retreat.’
’This doesn’t apply to real business.’

But if we shift the frame from purity to metabolism, from absolute states to developmental stages, suddenly the work becomes accessible.

You don’t have to be perfectly regenerative. You have to be conscious of the metabolism you already have, and willing to evolve it.

You don’t have to refuse all extraction. You have to understand how your extraction participates in cycles and then shift those relationships toward renewal.

You don’t have to achieve your full regenerative metabolism overnight. It starts simply when you start to move from unconscious to conscious. That’s the first real work.

And then, step by step, cycle by cycle, relationship by relationship.. you evolve.

What Comes Next

Soon I’ll share the story of an organization that’s pioneering something remarkable in finance.

Beneficial State Foundation just completed a two-year pilot proving that underwriting (the invisible infrastructure of banking) can evolve to address structural exclusion.

Their Underwriting for Racial Justice program worked with 20 lenders to redesign how lending decisions get made. Using AI to identify borrowers traditional models missed. Testing new criteria that increased access without increasing risk. Cutting decision times from weeks to days.

The results: faster capital deployment to communities of color, more accurate risk assessment, and proof that equitable finance is also smarter finance.

This is the human equity half of regenerative finance. And it came from a Metabolic Awakening: recognizing that traditional underwriting metrics weren’t neutral - they were built on extraction and exclusion.

The methodology they developed using rigorous data analysis, cohort learning, pilot testing, and public frameworks could be applied to the ecological half of regeneration too.

But first, they had to prove that finance could evolve beyond extraction in one dimension. They had to show that the “way things are” was actually “the way we chose to build them.”

And we can choose differently.

More on that next week.

An Invitation

If you recognize your business in these stages - if you’ve had your own Metabolic Awakening, if you’re trying to practice in the paradox, if you’re ready to examine your metabolism instead of chasing perfection - this is your invitation.

Inside the Regenerative Innovation Community, we practice this work together. Mapping metabolisms. Identifying where cycles can shift. Supporting each other through the messy, imperfect work of evolution.

The first Regenerative Innovation Lab is coming in 2026. Not a course teaching perfection, but a practice field for metabolic consciousness.

Because regeneration doesn’t begin with a perfect business model.

It begins with recognizing you’re already alive. Already participating in flows. Already extracting and giving back.

The question is: conscious or unconscious? Depleting or renewing? Breaking cycles or closing them?

That’s the work.