How Do We Work?

A support platform for change and a portfolio of concepts

The Bioregional Weaving Lab in SE Ireland aims to add value by functioning as a ‘support platform for change’ that provides the wider enabling conditions to nurture individual and fragmented ideas, initiatives and enterprises from the bioregion in a joined-up way and for long term positive change. Clusters of positive initiatives, with distinct themes but entangled with each other and the context of the bioregion, have been collected into a ‘portfolio of concepts’.

But what is a bioregion and what is weaving?

The terms bioregional, weaving and lab are chosen with intent – we have learnt to love them and hope you do too.

Bioregion

Definitions vary in nuance and scale, but a bioregion is larger than an ecosystem or a single watershed, and is perhaps the largest scale at which a sense of belonging can still be cultivated. In the BWL context, we sometimes use it interchangeably with the word ‘landscape’.

A bioregion can be described as an area, defined by ecological features and the communities with it, that is large enough to support potential collaboration for sustainable and regenerative futures.

A fine definition is also given by the Bioregional Learning Centre: “There is a connecting story that starts in deep geological time, shows up in the landscape and soil, and then in human culture. A bioregion invites us to inhabit a place in a way that is full of relationship”
Weaving

The process by which stakeholders – farmers, policymakers, innovators, NGOs, citizens and corporates – learn together how to interconnect people, projects and places around a shared purpose for systemic change and universal wellbeing.

Sometimes described as weaving for socio-ecological change, a short and simple description of weaving is ‘connecting people, projects and place for universal well-being’ (inspired by The Weaving Lab).
Lab

In the BWL approach, the Lab refers to a convening concept and place for supporting the testing and implementing of nature-based solutions, social innovations and new ways of collaborating for collective impact. It is a safe-space of belonging where support can be found in trust-based relational ways, as well as through knowledge exchange and sometimes funding.

Core Frameworks and Tools

BWL SE Ireland is linked to the European BWL Collective. All European BWLs draw on common frameworks and tools developed over decades drawing on the insights from changemakers and land stewards connected to our backbone organisations (Commonland and Ashoka). In Ireland we combine these approaches with the deep knowledge and unique context of the local landscape and communities, as well as published insights from other organizations, and work accordingly.

The core frameworks, methodologies and tools that are core to our approach have been developed through insights gained through Commonland’s global work to landscape scale restoration, as well as Ashoka’s work with social innovation and systems change. In addition we connect to a wide variety of tools and research being constantly added to by international practitioners and academics. Below you will find a small selection of core frameworks that have become a common language for stakeholders engaging with BWL in Ireland.

The 4 Returns (Commonland)

The 4 Returns recognise that many of the losses seen in today’s rural and community settings can be brought back by considering four different kinds of capital: social, nature, financial – and inspiration, a fundamental kind of capital without which the other forms of value cannot be sustained.

A common language of four losses and four returns enables us to aggregate the capital being generated in the bioregion, and to communicate between and beyond the emerging concepts.

The Three Zones (Commonland)

The 3 Zones recognise that the 4 Returns will look different depending on the nature of the landscape one is considering: for instance, a return of natural capital will be more likely and more dominant in mountainous areas than an urban centre. All zones can be aggregated to deliver on all four dimensions of regenerative value creation.

Download guidebook here

Systems Change

Systems change means addressing the root causes that are holding many of the visible effects – the symptoms – that we experience every day in place. A systems change strategy may involve looking at new policies, forms of partnerships, resources and such. It may also require fundamental mindset shifts.

Collective Impact

Collective Impact is an approach that focuses on developing a common vision that all parties can work towards in a coordinated manner. The importance of keeping the common vision in the centre (rather than a leading organisation’s own mission) and working to develop relationships and working practices to move towards this is taken up in other approaches such as mission-driven programs.

Three Horizons

This visual tool illustrates a new system emerging and trying to move towards a future we aspire to. This requires both old systems to be phased out, but also that innovations disrupt in a way that supports new fragmented and often small shoots rather than being sucked into existing ways of working that are no longer serving their purpose.

These tools and frameworks are just a taster: we also commonly refer to methods such as Doughnut Economics, Planetary Boundaries, Theory of Change and Logic Models, Social and Regenerative Business Model Canvases and many more.