11 July 2023
PANEL 1 – UNCOVERING THE BARRIERS TO REGENERATIVE ENTERPRISE
During the Innovate to Regenerate Greenhouse Event: Our Regenerative Futures, we heard from leaders from three regenerative enterprises funded through WWF-Australia's Innovate to Regenerate Challenge.
The panel, led by Annie Yan, Community Manager for the Innovate to Regenerate Challenge, surfaced key barriers and challenges they experience in becoming mature, viable enterprises. Our panelists included:
- Brad Darkson, co-founder of Moonrise Seaweed Co, a First Nations-led regenerative aquaculture enterprise.
- Willow Berzin, Chief Assembler and Founder of Coalition of Everyone, which puts communities at the heart of decision-making.
- Dr Ingrid Schraner, co-founder of re.source, which empties toxic coal-ash dams and creates valuable materials out of the waste.
Willow Berzin, Chief Assembler of Coalition of Everyone raised points around capacity constraints and the mindset shift for a regenerative future:
- Capacity and resourcing blockers are hampering the ability of people who want to work in the next economy but currently need more options.
- Lifted the need to rethink our intrinsic sense of value and how we can reimagine our human systems and ’create a more beautiful world’.
Watch Willow Berzin’s full panel presentation here:
Brad Darkson, co-founder Moonrise Seaweed Co, raised challenges around decolonisation and the impact it has on access to capital and land for First Peoples:
- Revisiting our colonial history and addressing multigenerational barriers that continue to face First Peoples due to colonisation is an important step in regeneration.
- Exploring what decolonised access to land and capital to support caring for Country looks like.
Watch Brad Darkson’s full panel presentation here:
Dr Ingrid Schraner, co-founder of Re.source highlighted challenges around the availability of capital:
- Designing funding to allow regenerative entrepreneurs to direct capital where it is most needed.
- The critical role for institutional players (government, funders, corporate) to lower the barriers to entry for these enterprises to exist.
Watch Dr Ingrid Schraner’s full panel presentation here: