When Building 21 was asked “how can we grow the economy while healing—not merely preserving—the environment?”, a diverse group of students converged around this question. We realized that, despite decades of debate on the economy-environment dichotomy, little meaningful progress had been made toward an economic model that harmonizes with environmental regeneration. This realization evolved into a project that aims to ask new and provoking questions, rather than seeking convenient answers.

Meeting on a weekly basis, we returned to fundamental questions: what is growth? What is the environment, and how do we understand it in relation to humanity? What are the qualities of the future we seek? With contributions from fields including sustainability, cognitive science, economics, computer science, and more, we recognized the unlimited perspectives that can imagine a regenerative economy. Through bold, interdisciplinary inquiry, we can come to know our blind spots and uncover unexpected angles of approaching the grand sustainability challenge. While the urgency of environmental degradation warrants swift action, it does not diminish the need for deep reflection and deliberation in academia and policymaking.