#20: From Polycrisis To Possibility: A Regenerative Sussex Vision

The Sussex And The City Podcast

– Episode 20:

From Polycrisis To Possibility: A Regenerative Sussex Vision

Host: Richard Freeman
Guest: Jenny Andersson – founder, The Really Regenerative Centre

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🔍 Episode summary

What if Sussex stopped “greening” the old system and started building a regenerative one? Richard talks with Jenny Andersson, whose Really Regenerative Centre helps places and organisations align economy, culture and ecology with living-systems principles.

Jenny argues that Sussex could lead in bioregional transformation, from food systems and bio-based construction to cross-Channel place identity, but only if we drop short project cycles and back long-horizon, participatory, whole-place design. How can we think properly about scale vs. ecosystems, profit and purpose, and why a mayor must be a visionary convener, not just a manager.

Jenny has spent a decade exploring regenerative design — aligning economy, culture and ecology with the principles that have sustained life for 3.8 billion years. She argues Sussex could lead the world in food reform, climate-friendly housing, and bio-based materials — but only if it dares to move beyond short projects and embrace long-term transformation.

 

This episode is brought to you in partnership with:

Kreston Reeves – one of the UK’s leading accountancy and advisory firms and among the first to achieve B Corp status. With offices in Brighton, Chichester and beyond, they help Sussex organisations grow with clarity, confidence and purpose — from tax strategy and audit to ESG reporting and succession planning.
👉 krestonreeves.com

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🎯 Why this matters

“Over 1000s of years in Sussex, you can see that there’s always been a culture of making, not making in vast numbers, but making small runs of incredibly high quality product.”

“This shift, this leap to having a regenerative economy, is about us learning how to really deeply and radically collaborate and look at the good of the whole before we look at individualism.”

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🧠 Topics covered include:

• What regeneration really means — “the impulse of life to continue to create the conditions conducive to life.”
• Sussex as a 'bay and a bowl': geology, history and cross-Channel ties.
• From shipbuilding to Rolls Royce and Montezuma’s — the thread of quality making in West Sussex.
• Why nutrient-dense local food and regenerative farming matter more than scale.
• The clash between “constant growth on a finite planet” and working with ecosystems.
• The need for radical collaboration and “new forms of governance and finance raising” to rebuild food and housing systems.
• Why Sussex needs a “We need a person who really understands… how do all those different stories of place come together in shared purpose to make a whole?”: “Somebody that is really developing a co-creative, multi stakeholder, participatory process… not spreadsheets and GDP figures.”

“We need a person who really understands… how do all those different stories of place come together in shared purpose to make a whole?”

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📚 Further reading and references

• The Really Regenerative Centre CIC

• Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture

• Sussex Bay

• South Downs National Park – Ecology & Biodiversity

• Scotland The Bread

• Doughnut Economics Action Lab

• New European Bauhaus

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🎧 Production credits

Host: Richard Freeman
Guest: Jenny Andersson
Sound design / editing / original music: Chris Thorpe-Tracey
Production management: Letitia McConalogue
Recorded: Projects, The Lanes - Brighton

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📣 Get involved

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