​The Science and Art of Regenerative Economics: Revolutionary Thinking for a World in Crisis

​Join us for a Monday morning conversation with John Fullerton about his new book and what an economy built on the logic of living systems would look like. John will share where his thinking has gone since the book came out, then open the floor.

​The argument has two halves that rarely get discussed together. One is rigorous science, drawn from how living systems actually work. The other is art, because applying any of it in a particular place, and shifting how people see the economy in the first place, is a work of imagination.

​The science

​Regenerative economics rests on a deceptively simple idea. An economic system should follow the same patterns that govern every other living system we know of. Those patterns are not metaphors. They have been studied for decades across ecology, network science and thermodynamics, and they hold whether you are looking at a forest, a watershed, a body or an economy.

​The framework moves past sustainability, circularity and degrowth to diagnose the root cause of the polycrisis, the compounding effects of climate chaos, biodiversity loss and widening inequality. It points toward abundance rather than austerity, and toward a set of design principles rather than another round of crisis management.

​More on the book: https://capitalinstitute.org/regenerative-economics-book/

​The art

​Knowing the principles tells you almost nothing about how to apply them in a particular place, with particular people and a particular history. That work is design, judgment and imagination, and it cannot be optimized.

​The larger shift, where enough people stop seeing the economy as a machine and start seeing it as a living system they belong to, will move through culture as much as through economics. So John wants to put a question to the room. Most of the strongest work being made about this crisis says, correctly, that we are in serious trouble. That is true and incomplete. How do you tell the whole truth about where we are without foreclosing the way through, and what could artists make of that problem?

​About John Fullerton

​John Fullerton is an unconventional economist, author, and impact investor widely considered the architect of Regenerative Economics. He is the founder of Capital Institute, dedicated to the bold reimagination of economics and finance aligned with and in service to life.

​After a successful 20-year career on Wall Street where he was a Managing Director of what he calls "the old JPMorgan," John listened to a persistent inner voice and walked away in 2001 with no plan but many questions. Those questions became his life's work.

​His 2025 book, Regenerative Economics: Revolutionary Thinking for a World in Crisis (New Society Publishers), is the culmination of that inquiry. He is a member of the Club of Rome, and he and James Lovelock were featured in the 2021 award-winning documentary Going Circular.

​Practical

​Books will be available and John will sign. The kitchen is open afterward, so stay for lunch and keep the conversation going.

​The event is hosted in the Dream Room at Caravan of Dreams. Part of Where Climate Week Comes to Dream: https://dearcrisis.com/climateweek

​We aim to keep our events accessible. If money is an issue, please apply for financial assistance from our Community Fund.