… a suite of 9 interlinked Blueprints, 7 already developed, and 2 to be released in 2021 (Educational Transformation) and 2022 (Systemic Governance & Funding). In 2020 r3.0 also released its first White Paper (From Monocapitalism to Multicapitalism). We have convened 7 prior r3.0 conferences; we host Academic Alliance and Advocation Partners networks; we also host Research and Test Lab collaborations, e.g. with the UNRISD Sustainable Development Performance Indicators Project, the Connecticut River Valley Bioregional Collaborative of the Regenerative Communities Network, and the Civic Fiduciary & Equity Culture Project; and we are instigating our Global Thresholds & Allocations Council & Network. Finally, we are continuing to organise Transformation Journey Programs for those who want to activate transformation in their organizations and lives. We feel uniquely positioned to gather world-class “game-changing and mind-blowing” speakers in a highly interactive “sleeves-rolled-up” working conference setting. Given the stage of maturation r3.0 is reaching, this leads to two important pathways that are influencing the conference setup:

Making the r3.0 Work Ecosystem Work:
In our content development phase, we focused on knowledge co-creation (with our global Working Groups), forging a strong foundation from which to now focus on dissemination and implementation. While we “keep our thinking caps on,” we’re also “rolling up our sleeves.” We at r3.0 stand prepared to shift further into advocation mode, asserting the necessity of aligning action in the fields we influence with the thermodynamic realities and ethical imperatives we identify in our Work Ecosystem. The time is ripe for r3.0 to shift its focus from knowledge generation to application and action. Our collaboration with UNRISD, piloting next-generation context-based indicators, is just one example of how we have already started down this path, and we foresee more action-oriented advocation going forward.

Nurturing Edge Effect Abundance: After spending a half-dozen years trying to effect change at the center, in the mainstream as well as institutions that purport to advance sustainability, in 2019 r3.0 pivoted to also advocate for transformation from the margins. We took our inspiration from our Advocation Partner John Fullerton of the Capital Institute, whose 6th Principle of Regenerative Economics focuses on Edge Effect Abundance: “Creativity and abundance flourish synergistically at the ‘edges’ of systems, where the bonds holding the dominant pattern in place are weakest.” Accordingly, r3.0 has diversified from global level engagement in the realm of masculine ego-engorged competition to a bioregional focus on feminine collectivist collaboration. We believe that existing economic and political infrastructure, with globalized supply chains on steroids and mass production that overshoots resource and assimilation capacities – with consequent social degradation – cannot possibly persist. So, in addition to top-down engagement, r3.0 also focuses increasingly on grassroots and peer-to-peer engagement. This is reflected in our convening the Connecticut River Valley Bioregional Collaborative as well as our increasing support for Test Lab experimentation and collaborative, action-oriented Research projects.

A Multi-Year Conference Structure 

In 2020 r3.0 embarked on a multi-year conference structure. This structure is divided into four major focusareas associated with the mindset shifts necessary for redesign to a regenerative and distributive economy. These interlinked elements correspond to the primary streams in the r3.0 work ecosystem, which we believe need to be addressed holistically and simultaneously in order to trigger a systemic transformation. These four areas requiring significant gap closures are:

• Science & Behaviour: The intersection of physical and social sciences (particularly on ecological and social thresholds and allocations) with the mindset shifts needed to transform from a growth obsessed monocapitalist economy to a regenerative and distributive multicapitalist economy.
• Finance & Growth: Economic growth theory embraced by Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus advocates for “optimal” global warming of 3.5C – a recipe for triggering a tipping point into hothouse Earth!
• Value & Circularity: What is value – is it synonymous with money, or does it encompass a much broader expression that aligns with regenerative & distributive economy design? And how can we align a circular economy with a sustainable economy to ensure System Value creation (beyond the current fad of Impact Valuation).
• Governance & Education: What new global, regional and local governance is needed to enable a regenerative & distributive economy to come into fruition, and how can shifts in funding priorities support the emergence of a regenerative & distributive economy? How must education transform to support the emergence of regenerative cultures?

• Education & Governance: This focus-area will initiate work on the last two Blueprints in r3.0’s Blueprint development – the Educational Transformation Blueprint, slated for release at the Conference, and the Systemic Governance & Funding Blueprint, planned to kick-off during the Conference – setting the stage for r3.0 to enter a full adaptation cycle for its Blueprints in 2022. 
• Finance & Growth: Our recently released Multicapitalism White Paper will serve as the focal point of this topic area, building on the foundations of the Sustainable Finance Blueprint released at last year’s Conference. Exploration will particularly examine if Multicapitalism is a capitalist or post-capitalist concept.   
• Value & Circularity: How is value created in ways that circulate within the metabolism cycles of bioregions? This session will focus on r3.0’s Test Lab work seeding a Bioregional Action Research Network for assessing and managing bioregional carrying capacities. 
• Science & Behaviour: This focus-area will solely be looking at the r3.0/UNRISD Thresholds of Transformation pilot project and will work with some of the pilot-testing companies in explaining their use of the first-ever context-based indicator sets.

The first day of the Conference will feature four 90-minute Plenary Panels with four Keynote Speakers in each, covering these thematic pairings. As in 2020, this will be done in collaboration with iStream, in order to guarantee high-quality recorded sets of keynote sessions.
The second day will host a set of open discussions, framed as ‘Rooms’, all sessions built around questions about further and deeper engagement around the four focus-areas of Day 1. This will include picking up on recommended content that conference registrants can share with r3.0 in advance, as well as ad-hoc contributions from the audience. Through this we aim at increasing an open debate and more diverse views, delivering more glue to the r3.0 partners, for example the r3.0 Advocation Partner and Academic Alliance Networks.