THE ‘PIONEER IN 5’ with EMMA FOSTER-GEERING, VIVOBAREFOOT

Emma Foster-Geering, Director of Sustainability at Vivobarefoot, shares her ‘Pioneer in 5’ with us below, shining a light on what regenerative leadership means to her, how that manifests in her work at Vivobarefoot, the benefits to business in working more closely with nature, and what inspires her!

1. What does regenerative leadership in business look like to you, and why do you think it is so important?

Tough to answer because it is changing all the time. At some level I think it’s about admitting that businesses are modern day communities that give us purpose, meaning and connection – so they need to own this responsibility and act as such. At another level I think you could just adopt the phrase ‘don’t be a dick’ to every business decision. Want to make products that poison the world? Or pay workers peanuts whilst the Exec’s make millions? Don’t be a dick applies to almost every business situation where you have a choice to do something good for people and planet or not. In practical terms, Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm brilliantly articulate what regenerative leadership looks like in their book on the subject (https://www.regenerativeleadership.co/)

2. How does it manifest in your work at Vivobarefoot?

In truth it was something for me that replaced the increasingly unfit-for-purpose idea of ‘sustainable business’. It having strayed so far from the true definition of sustainability - to safeguard the planet for future generations. Unregulated capitalist growth of corporate manufacturing and consumption fuelled by the notion of simply doing more of the wrong things, slightly better, simply doesn’t align to what the planet truly needs. That being urgent reconnection of humans to themselves, to each other and the intensive, rewilding and restoration of our natural world. The ridiculousness of hiring a single Head-of-Sustainability or perhaps even a team, to solve these problems for the world, is bonkers. Regenerative leadership offers us an opportunity to ignite not just employees but all stakeholders to a business ecosystem (community), in the collective mission to help us all live our best lives in flourishing diversity, our ‘jobs’ simply becoming opportunities for us to look to nature for solutions to problems we’ve entrenched only recently in the grand scheme of life on earth.

3. What do you see as the benefits to business of working more closely with nature, and helping to protect and restore it?

An odd place to start, but there is no denying a big part of the benefit is financial. Bringing new people into the business, ensuring that their on-boarding process is meaningful, that they are nurtured within the ecosystem and feel an equally valued part of the community. There is no doubt this adds value to our business and makes us smarter with the money we make. Let’s face it, we’ve ALL wasted company time venting to our colleagues about how frustrating something is at work! The less there is of this and the more ‘healthy’ tension there is where we’re talking openly about really important stuff going on in the world around us and what we are collectively doing to impact that, the better for the business and for us all individually. It’s still early days but the same benefits are starting to work through the way we design and source product, our approach to how we work with the people who buy our products (we’re still deciding how to move from consumer to citizen language) and the way we show up in the greedy corporate world.

4. What are you most proud of having achieved at Vivobarefoot? And equally what is the biggest challenge you face in realising the business’s vision?

Unfinished Business. It is so much more than an annual report. It’s our proverbial middle finger up at conventional business to say we can do better, watch us try. But most importantly it’s where we come together once a year to reflect on what we’re achieving in the world (or not) and how we’re going to do it better next year. Working in sustainability is like being stuck in the world’s longest foreplay. It’s a hell of a lot of work, you’re seriously emotionally invested, but you never actually get to climax. Because ‘saving the planet’ just seems to be a bigger and bigger impossible task! It’s clear we’ve been going about it wrong. It’s time we relax and let other people be part of the journey. That in itself is my biggest challenge; to let people in to realise the vision in their own ways.

5. How does nature personally inspire you?

How ambivalent it is about how humans feel about it. Whether we are trashing it or admiring it, it continues on – irreverent to the externalising of our feelings towards it. Functioning through fundamental truths that are simply unarguable, to survive and thrive. How could we do better as a human race and use less of our energy caring about what other people thought of us or what their opinions were, and instead focused on building communities of flourishing diversity, structured around unarguable goals for healthy lifestyles.

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