Regenerative Innovation in Firms: Emerging Practices and a Future Outlook

Overview: Sustainability has become a central principle for innovation and technology management, with firms investing heavily in clean technologies, resource efficiency, and innovation driven by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles. Unfortunately, sustainability—primarily focused on reducing harm—is insufficient to address escalating climate and societal challenges. Increasingly, scholars and practitioners advocate for a transition toward regenerative innovation, which goes beyond sustainability and offers a long-term regenerative value for businesses, society, and the planet. However, regenerative innovation—as a practice to actively pursue climate-positive change—remains conceptually fragmented and operationally underdeveloped in industry settings. To address this challenge, building on public expert discourse on organizational engagement in regeneration, we examine how industry experts drive the societal and ecological shifts to regeneration. We also outline how organizations leverage emerging regenerative innovation practices to progressively shift from being sustainable to becoming regenerative, allowing companies to shape climate-positive futures more proactively. We identify four emerging practices in how companies pursue regenerative innovation through (1) the mindset shift, (2) purposeful governance, (3) leveraging technology as an enabler, and (4) redefining value creation. Departing from the existing sustainability logic, we contend that these practices fuel the ongoing green and digital transitions in the industry toward regenerative innovation and, at the same time, encourage scholars to shape the future research agenda on regeneration.