Regenerative Systems Co-Design Cards

About the Tool

The Regenerative Systems Co-Design Cards are an interactive, role-playing and sense-making tool developed for the hotel, hospitality and tourism sector, using the four lenses of Doughnut Economics.

The tool helps participants explore how a hospitality business is connected to its surrounding communities, natural ecosystems and wider economy. Rather than treating sustainability as a collection of isolated business activities, it encourages participants to examine relationships, dependencies, competing interests and opportunities for regeneration.

The exercise is context-specific. It uses a real hotel, guesthouse, resort or other hospitality business as a case study, considering its location, operations, environmental conditions, community relationships and economic realities.

The original exercise was developed around 40 Acres Guest Farm in Magaliesberg, South Africa. Its structure can be adapted to other hospitality businesses and destinations by changing the case study and relevant card content.

How to Use the Tool

Duration: Approximately 70 minutes
Format: Facilitated group exercise
Materials: Case study, four Identity Cards, 48 Perspective Cards, Four Lenses Cards and a shared board.

Step 1. Introduce the hospitality case

Present a short, factual description of the selected business and its surrounding environment.

Include its operations, guest experience, local communities, natural resources, suppliers, economic relationships and relevant social or ecological challenges.

The purpose is to establish a shared understanding of the place without prescribing solutions.

Step 2. Assign four stakeholder identities

Divide participants into four groups:

1. Place & Nature: Represents ecosystems, biodiversity, land, water and ecological wellbeing.
2. People & Community: Represents residents, workers, local knowledge holders, neighbouring communities and future generations.
3. Tourism & Hospitality: Represents guests, hotel operators, tourism professionals and experience designers.
4. Capital & Economy: Represents business owners, investors, suppliers, financial institutions and wider economic relationships.

Each group receives an Identity Card explaining whose perspective it represents, together with 12 Perspective Cards containing questions and statements relevant to that identity.

Step 3. Explore the perspective cards

Participants temporarily adopt their assigned identity, rather than speaking only from their usual professional position.

They spread the cards across the table, discuss their meaning, identify relationships, challenge assumptions and explore tensions.

The main rule is not to design solutions immediately. Participants should first understand what matters from their assigned perspective and what other stakeholders might overlook.

There are no predetermined correct answers, and groups do not need to agree with every card or discuss all twelve.

Step 4. Apply the four lenses of Doughnut Economics

Once participants have explored their cards, introduce the four lenses as a shared sense-making framework:

• Local–Social: How can the people of this place thrive?
• Local–Ecological: How can this place thrive as part of nature?
• Global–Social: How do decisions made here affect people elsewhere?
• Global–Ecological: How do decisions made here affect the wider planet?

Participants revisit their cards and discussions through these lenses.

For example, a hotel's food procurement decisions may influence local farmers' livelihoods, supply-chain working conditions, biodiversity and environmental impacts beyond the destination.

The lenses are not categorised for sorting cards. They help participants recognise connections and consequences that might otherwise remain invisible.

Step 5. Select three priorities per group

Each group selects three of its twelve Perspective Cards representing the issues it believes the hospitality business should prioritise on its journey towards regeneration.

The selection should consider the importance of each issue, its regenerative potential and its relevance to the business.

Each group presents its three priorities and briefly explains its reasoning.

Together, the four groups produce 12 collective priorities.

These are priorities for consideration, not finished solutions.

Step 6. Invite the business to respond

A representative of the hospitality business listens to the priorities and responds from an operational perspective.

They may raise questions about affordability, staffing, investment, guest expectations, implementation capacity and relationships with other stakeholders.

Their role is not to defend existing practices or accept every recommendation, but to make the practical realities of business transformation visible.

Step 7. Facilitate collective sense-making

Bring the twelve priorities together on a shared board.

Invite participants to examine which priorities reinforce one another, where tensions exist, who benefits, who carries the costs and which changes require collaboration beyond the individual business.

This final discussion connects the business to the wider economic system in which it operates.

Expected Outputs

The exercise produces a collectively developed set of twelve priorities, accompanied by insights into stakeholder relationships, dependencies, trade-offs and potential areas for collaboration.

These findings can inform further research, stakeholder engagement, business strategy and the design of place-based regenerative experiments.

Important: The tool is not intended to certify a hospitality business as regenerative or produce a complete transformation plan in one session. Its purpose is to build a shared understanding of the system before moving into solution design, testing and implementation.

To access the tool, click here: https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVHn3k3M8=/?share_link_id=556621815013