Introduction
What is the Regenerative Twin, and why do we need a regenerative approach?
Four years on, and the industry is recognising that the drive to be more ‘sustainable’ is not delivering meaningful change. A new approach is needed which doesn’t just seek to ensure the survival of people and planet, but aims to create a future in which nature and human beings thrive. How can the built environment achieve this ambition when its primary purpose is weighted towards the thriving of people and communities, but at the expense of natural systems? The answer is for the industry to become more ‘regenerative’.
We took a specific community need – to provide physical space in which to educate our children – and selected a school we constructed a few years ago in Wales and assembled a project team. Together, we applied a regenerative lens to the early stages of the design process to answer this question:
What would happen if we re-thought the procurement and design processes, putting regenerative principles before capital expenditure?
Through an interdisciplinary approach to early design based on the original Circular Twin concept, enriched with deep supply chain engagement, the study demonstrated that there is a correlation between the increased use of renewable and existing materials and socio-economic benefits, and that far greater environmental gains are available than previously thought.
Regulation: The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 is a pioneering regulation of a regenerative mindset, as indicated by its five guiding principles: collaboration, integration, involvement, long-term and prevention.
Policy: The Woodlands for Wales strategy (2018) sets out a regenerative goal that the forestry industries of Wales support both nature and local communities to thrive. This policy direction serves as important local context for a Welsh regenerative construction project.
The project: The project that formed the basis of this study was a secondary school constructed by Morgan Sindall Construction and completed on site in 2021 in South Wales.