The REGEN Gazette

November 6, 2025

Leilah Taouk shares the early thinking behind a new PhD as part of the Swimmable Birrarung, asking: how do we measure a living, changing river in a way that honours its complexity? As we know, the act of measuring is not just technical; it is a way of knowing the river, of informing the decisions we make, and highlighting where interventions can have the greatest impact.

October 30, 2025

Can we create an economy that serves people and planet? As co-founder of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, Dr. Katherine Trebeck has spent much of her life trying to answer this question. She sits down with Oliver Pelling to discuss what she’s learned so far.

October 29, 2025

It’s been almost a decade since Kate Raworth published Doughnut Economics, permanently shifting the way we think about the purpose of our economy. As we mark the release of Doughnut 3.0, RM’s Systems Lab Director, Alison Whitten, reflects on how the Doughnut continues to shape Regen Melbourne’s work.

October 16, 2025

What type of research collaborations can we imagine that serve place and the knowledge flows that exist here? Yasmina Dhkissi invites us to think about how we can apply new models of collaborations to push forward the transitions we need to see.

September 29, 2025

They’ve pulled it off in Chicago, Paris, Copenhagen and even Sydney. So how close is Melbourne to having a swimmable Birrarung? Regen Melbourne’s Swimmable Birrarung Lead Convener, Charity Mosienyane, shares how far we’ve come and what needs to happen next.

August 25, 2025

Professor Lauren Rickards is a leading thinker, advisor and researcher on the social dimensions of climate change adaptation, and former Chair of Regen Melbourne

August 19, 2025

Having a shared understanding of what climate change adaptation actually is, is integral to doing the work effectively. To mark the relaunch of the Climate Change Exchange, Regen Melbourne’s Research Activation Lead, Yasmina Dkhissi, breaks down the nuances and often-oversimplified aspects of climate adaptation.

August 7, 2025

Retno Palupi reflects on their time with the Regen Melbourne team as an intern exploring what prevents us from swimming in the Birrarung today and the ways we can think differently about stormwater.

July 30, 2025

Want to know where to get the best vanilla slice, injera or bowl of Pho in Melbourne? Give Dani Valent a call. A widely respected food and travel journalist, Dani has been telling Melbourne’s food stories for years, championing the diversity and complexity of our city via the people that grow our food and cook our meals. Sarah Smith sits down with Dani to talk community, food and her vision for a truly Nourished Neighbourhood.

July 30, 2025

Imagine if food was no longer a commodity, but the glue that connects our communities – sustaining the environment and promoting a healthy, thriving Melbourne. This is the vision of Regen Melbourne’s newly launched Nourished Neighbourhoods Earthshot. Lead convener, Dheepa Jeyapalan, shares the wildly ambitious thinking behind the project, and how it aims to transform Melbourne’s food systems.

July 30, 2025

Foodprint Melbourne has launched a toolkit to support communities and organisations across the state plan for more resilient food systems. To mark its release, Nourished Neighbourhoods lead convenor, Dheepa Jeyapalan, sits down with the Foodprint Melbourne team to discuss their groundbreaking research and bold vision for a regenerative city.

June 30, 2025

What can nature teach us if we really stop and listen? Swimmable Birrarung Lead Convener, Charity Mosienyane, reflects on a day spent by the river with the Regen Melbourne team and environmental educator Dr. Maya Ward.

June 26, 2025

What could Greater Melbourne look like in 2055 if Regen Melbourne and Infrastructure Victoria put our heads together? Our Director of Systems Lab Alison Whitten slips on her Doughnut-shaped glasses to submit a formal response to ‘Infrastructure Victoria’s Draft 30-year Strategy’.

June 26, 2025

Regen Melbourne’s Collaboration and Investment Lead Joshua Devine shares how his experience in the world of impact finance – from attending COP29 to time spent in the Indigenous business sector – helps inform his work developing new approaches to systemic investment.

June 26, 2025

Four months into his role as Regen Melbourne’s Policy and New Urban Governance Lead, Joel Backwell is increasingly optimistic about the untapped potential of our city and its people. He reflects on Melbourne’s history as a beacon for democratic innovation, and how declining trust in government and political institutions can (and should) help us innovate new forms of democratic participation.

June 4, 2025

Globally renowned urban planner and mastermind behind the Barcelona Superblocks concept, Salvador Rueda, recently visited Melbourne for Design Week. While here, he hit the pavement with 300,000 Streets lead convener Nina Sharpe and a group of city-shapers to get a sense of Melbourne’s potential for transformation.

June 4, 2025

Imagine if our streets were designed to bring joy, connection and community action. Imagine if our streets were designed by us. This is the vision of Regen Melbourne’s newly-launched 300,000 Streets Earthshot. Lead convener Nina Sharpe shares the wildly ambitious thinking behind the project, and how it aims to transform Melbourne into a thriving, climate-resilient, interconnected and community-centred city.

June 4, 2025

You’ve probably heard of a ‘Moonshot’, but how about an ‘Earthshot’? This year, Regen Melbourne is thrilled to (re)introduce our trio of wildly ambitious Earthshots – three interventions we believe will help us unlock systemic transformation across Greater Melbourne. Here, Nicole Barling-Luke explains why they’re imperative to our work.

May 20, 2025

Over the course of 2025, Regen Melbourne will publish a series of reports that summarise our initial work in New Urban Governance. In the first of this series, RM’s Collaboration and Investment Lead, Joshua Devine, reports back on our experiments with the participatory grant-making app Hum.

May 8, 2025

Last month, Sweltering Cities, Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and Regen Melbourne hosted a half-day workshop: ‘Hot Food: Building Melbourne’s Food System Resilience in a Warming World.’ Our Food Systems convenor Dheepa Jeyapalan reports back on what we learned.

April 30, 2025

The Australia Quarterly invited CEO of Regen Melbourne, Kaj Löfgren, to reflect on RM’s work in the context of the polycrisis for their April 2025 edition. The article is republished here with permission.

April 29, 2025

Regen Streets convener, Nina Sharpe, reports back on the strategies and conversations that emerged from our recent “local economies” workshop with world-renowned localisation expert Helena Norberg-Hodge and community organisers from across Melbourne.

April 23, 2025

What are we learning from the likes of Amsterdam and Cornwall about how to put Doughnut Economics and the City Portrait into practice here in Melbourne? Regen Melbourne City Portrait Analyst Lokesh Sangarya reflects on how international practice continues to inform and evolve the Melbourne Doughnut.

March 28, 2025

In April, Regen Melbourne’s will be co-hosting a ‘Hot Food’ workshop in collaboration with Sweltering Cities and the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation. Here, our Food Systems convenor Dheepa Jeyapalan chats with Sweltering Cities founder Emma Bacon to discuss what it’ll take for Melbourne’s food system to become truly resilient.

March 28, 2025

Helena Norberg-Hodge has dedicated her life to rebuilding connections. As founder of international not-for-profit Local Futures, she’s helped reimagine the status quo, advocating for ecological and social renewal, thriving local food systems and strengthened communities via a decentralised economy.

March 28, 2025

How do we transform our city’s streets to shape the neighbourhoods Melburnians want? Through lengthy community engagement, Regen Streets has identified seven key building blocks to get us where we need to go.

March 28, 2025

Last year, the Swimmable Birrarung project enjoyed an exciting but completely unplanned viral media moment. We responded well, but were caught off guard. Here, Charity Mosienyane explains how we did things differently when the same thing happened this February.

February 28, 2025

This month, we welcome Dr. Dominique Hes to the Regen Melbourne board, where she will take on a very special role: to represent nature. Here, Dominique reflects on the opportunities and responsibilities ahead - including what nature can teach us about purposeful governance within our organisations.

February 27, 2025

What does ziplining have to do with climate change adaptation? More than you would think. Here’s how an adventure in Laos made our Adaptive Futures Lead, Yasmina, ponder the nature of resilient systems.

February 27, 2025

Gypsy Wright, a Bachelor of Environment and Society student at RMIT University, reflects on her student placement with Regen Melbourne.

February 27, 2025

Vera Wang, friend of Regen Melbourne and a grant recipient and project lead at RMIT University, reflects on how connecting the Melbourne Doughnut with the Australian Indigenous Doughnut on Global Doughnut Day created a space to connect with Country and community.

January 22, 2025

Without requiring the services of a crystal ball, there are a few things we already know about 2025: We know that it’ll have 12 months and 365 days in it. We know our global political landscape has shifted. We know we’ll be at the whims of an increasingly unstable climate, no matter where we live or our socioeconomic status. And we know, despite it all, that so many millions of us will spend the next 12 months planting seeds in the hope they might one day bear branches strong enough to hold our visions of a better world. Here, Regen Melbourne CEO Kaj Lofgren reflects on why these seeds matter now more than ever.

December 11, 2024

As the year draws to a close and Regen Melbourne celebrates it’s fourth birthday, CEO Kaj Löfgren launches our first ever Annual Report and reflects on a year of progress, big wins, sidesteps, re-shuffles and growth for our team, partners and projects.

December 9, 2024

How can the recommendations from the Greater Melbourne City Portrait begin to influence policy and planning decision-making across the city? Director of Regen Melbourne’s Systems Lab, Alison Whitten, explains how the City Portrait is shifting gears through 2025 and beyond.

December 9, 2024

From our food systems to our streets, Melbourne has so much potential to become a world-leading regenerative city – one capable of ensuring environmental and economic resilience while allowing our communities to thrive. Here, Regen Melbourne’s Food Systems Lead, Dheepa Jeyapalan, explains how community holds the key to unlocking transformative change in this place.

December 6, 2024

How do we begin to grasp the interconnected pickle we’re in without falling into despair? Is there a way for us to grasp the challenges we’re facing in a manner that moves us towards beauty, and away from apathy? Regen Melbourne’s Yasmina Dkhissi explores all that, and more, through the lens of mosaics.

October 30, 2024

A year on from the City Portrait launch, Regen Melbourne’s Director of Systems Labs, Alison Whitten, reflects on how our understanding of the platform’s purpose and value has evolved. TL;DR: If last year was all about building a thing, this year was all about learning its usefulness and application.

October 29, 2024

As traditional economic models deplete the environment and turn communities into competitors, how can we flip the script and make sure our economy serves people and the planet, instead of the other way around? Warwick Smith, the Program Director for Wellbeing Government from the Centre for Policy Development, explains the transformative concept of wellbeing economics, and how we can start applying it in Australia.

October 2, 2024

Over three weeks in September, the second-ever Riverfest took place along the banks of the Birrarung River. The event was organised by the Yarra Riverkeeper Association and Regen Melbourne was privileged to play a role in the event’s success. Here, Charity Mosienyane, Lead Convenor for the Swimmable Birrarung project, reflects on an incredible celebration of Melbourne’s life force.

October 2, 2024

Our streets are bursting with the possibility to radically transform how we live and adapt in the face of the many systemic challenges we face. In a new report one year in the making, Regen Streets Lead Convenor Nina Sharpe explores how we can better harness the potential on our doorsteps.

September 30, 2024

This October, urban design student Tiaré Murphy is hosting ‘Green Spaces in Unusual Places’, a dynamic pop-up climate hub in Melbourne CBD. Developed in partnership with Regen Melbourne and with the support of a City of Melbourne Youth Climate Action grant, the pop-up aims to involve the community in climate conversations and inspire action for a safer, cleaner and greener urban future. We spoke to Tiaré for a behind-the-scenes scoop.

September 30, 2024

If we want to fix the deeply rooted issues in Melbourne’s strained food system, first we need to make sense of it. How did we get here? What have we come to accept as ‘status quo’? And what’s standing in the way of meaningful collective action? In our latest report, ‘The Foodie City we need to become

September 2, 2024

As she continues to explore emerging governance practices in her role as New Urban Governance Lead, Caroline Sanz-Veitch has been spending time in the field, learning from community and cultures close to her (as well as some a little further away). Here, she shares some of the insights she’s started to glean — and the importance of understanding how different people and groups relate to a place.

August 30, 2024

When it comes to regenerating our city (and planet!), we need to look at what makes us human: our ability to learn and transform, and our connection to nature and each other. In her first Field Note, Yasmina Dkhissi, Regen Melbourne’s new Adaptive Futures Lead, explores what it will take for us to work together, find common ground, and ask the right questions as we make our way through the climate and biodiversity crises.

August 30, 2024

We often talk about “altitude sickness” in our work at Regen Melbourne, and for good reason – it’s complex! Sometimes though, the framing of altitude sickness has its limits (in the logical, vertical layering it implies). Here, Nicole Barling-Luke explores a reframing of this feeling, and asks: what if we started thinking about the jolt we receive when we’re overwhelmed with complexity as an invitation for seduction instead?

August 30, 2024

How can Greater Melbourne respect the wellbeing of all people? This was the prompt for a series of workshops we held in August to explore the role Melbourne plays – and more importantly, can play – in the global social, political and economic context. Alison Whitten, Regen Melbourne’s Systems Lab Director and facilitator of the workshops, reflects on what came out of them, and what comes next.

July 30, 2024

There is no shortage of models for change in the world, so this year we’ve been reviewing how this plurality of approaches can coalesce into a coherent living strategy for Regen Melbourne’s work. Kaj and Nicole explain why we’ve chosen – of all things – a periodic table to help us make sense of our unique alchemy.

July 28, 2024

This September, thousands of Melburnians will come together to celebrate the second-ever Birrarung Riverfest – a three-week-long festival for our beloved Yarra/Birrarung River. With a huge range of events taking place up and down the length of the river, we speak to Carina Watson from Yarra Riverkeeper Association, the event’s masterminds, to find out what’s in store for 2024.

July 24, 2024

Between the cost of living, climate change, COVID, and conflict, the deep flaws and inequities in our food systems have been laid bare. In her new role as Regen Melbourne’s Food Systems Lead, Dheepa Jeyapalan reflects on the challenges and opportunities ahead of us as we collaborate to create a fairer and more regenerative food system for our city.

July 24, 2024

With global attention on the Paris Olympics (and a swimmable Seine river), the newly launched Swimmable Cities Charter aims to harness this momentum for the good of our global rivers. Swimmable Birrarung Lead Convenor Charity Mosienyane explains.

June 30, 2024

Caroline Sanz-Veitch shares the maturing of Participatory Melbourne into cross-cutting work focused on New Urban Governance (aka how we enable better relationships between communities and our democratic systems). Caro reflects on the insights from the last year and what led us to the realisation that we must pave a new path through the lens of participation as an enabling condition, not a stand-alone project.

June 28, 2024

Last week, Regen Melbourne held a Design Forum at the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation event space. The provocation to the room was: How do we catalyse a wave of regenerative streets in Greater Melbourne? Regen Streets Lead Convenor Nina Sharpe shares her takeaways below.

June 19, 2024

Having recently returned from Bhutan, the country famous for Gross National Happiness, Director of Research Alison Whitten shares her reflections on three key concepts we might apply to Melbourne’s regeneration: sufficiency, spirituality and new approaches to systemic measurement.

May 31, 2024

If we want the Swimmable Birrarung to be realised, we need a couple of things: a shared, collaborative vision and some damn good stories. Swimmable Birrarung Lead Convenor, Charity Mosienyane, shares two recent reflections around communications and community that she has been hearing time and time again within the broader Birrarung collaborator ecosystem.

May 20, 2024

Recently returned from a trip to the country famous for pioneering Gross National Happiness, Director of Research Alison Whitten shares lessons and insights from the road.

May 20, 2024

In her latest audio Field Note, Caroline speaks with Nina about the points at which Participatory Melbourne and Regen Streets overlap, and interviews Dylan O’Donnell from Irregular festival about what a hyperlocal festival is (and why it matters). Listen below.

May 20, 2024

How do we spot and disrupt the repeated patterns that constantly show up when trying to create deep change in our streets? This question, and many others, are front of mind for Regen Streets lead convenor Nina Sharpe during the project’s sensemaking process.

May 5, 2024

Three years ago, Regen Melbourne was established as a community project following the release of our foundational report, ‘Towards a Regenerative Melbourne’. This year, after a successful incubation by Small Giants Academy, we’re celebrating by becoming a registered charity and an independent entity in our own right.

May 4, 2024

Thriving neighbourhoods will require the combined efforts of community leaders from across Greater Melbourne. Nina Sharpe has been meeting with these leaders to better understand the challenges and opportunities they face, and the role Regen Melbourne can play in helping bring their bold and hopeful visions to life.

May 2, 2024

We talk a lot about the vision for a Swimmable Birrarung. But what does ‘swimmable’ really mean in practice? Nicole Barling-Luke dives into the different ways in which ‘swimmable’ could come to life over the next few years (and decades).

April 26, 2024

Melbourne Invests in Systemic Transformation (MIST), is a new collaboration between local and global capital holders, fund managers and thought leaders. Convened by Regen Melbourne, the initiative seeks to achieve a paradigm shift in the impact and approach to deploying purpose-led capital across Greater Melbourne.

April 12, 2024

This year marks the tenth anniversary of a group of actors coming together to make Sydney’s Parramatta River swimmable again. Swimmable Birrarung Lead Convenor Charity Mosienyane spoke with one of the Parramatta project’s leads, Sarah Holland-Clift, about what our own river-healing initiative could learn from this Sydney success story.

April 11, 2024

As the Swimmable Birrarung project moves into the Organising phase of Regen Melbourne’s SOIL framework, a new report outlines the Fields of Action underway for the river for 2024 and beyond.

April 10, 2024

ICYMI: the Swimmable Birrarung project recently found itself in the throes of a national media frenzy. From breakfast television to the pages of national mastheads – this community-led project was thrust into the spotlight with all the excitement, speculation and skepticism that comes with it. So how did we get here, and what does it all mean?

April 8, 2024

A Swimmable Birrarung by 2030 might be Wildly Ambitious, but look a little further afield and you’ll find plenty of cities that have developed strong urban swimming cultures, despite the (systemic) odds.

March 19, 2024

The Wildly Ambitious Goal of Regen Streets is to help catalyse a wave of regenerated streets across Greater Melbourne. While it might seem a fairly simple word, understanding how a wave works can actually help us determine Regen Melbourne’s role in this field, writes Lead Convenor Nina Sharpe.

March 19, 2024

What’s next for the Melbourne Doughnut? Regen Melbourne Research Lead Alison Whitten and CEO Kaj Lofgren explain how our Doughnut will help sustain our regeneration efforts in the years to come.

March 19, 2024

The Swimmable Birrarung is a vast and ambitious project to regenerate our city’s iconic river so it’s not only swimmable, but healthy, clean and teeming with biodiversity. Regen Melbourne CEO, Kaj Lofgren, explains what’s currently standing in the way of this epic vision.

March 14, 2024

In November 2023, Regen Melbourne successfully launched the City Portrait for Greater Melbourne. Now, our focus shifts to using the doughnut to inform our work, inspire action, and catalyse change.

March 6, 2024

In the latest instalment of our unofficial and semi-regular ‘What exactly does Regen Melbourne do?’ series, Director of Projects Nicole Barling-Luke explains how the different phases of Regen Melbourne’s SOIL methodology add up to systems transformation (or at least, how she thinks they will).

March 6, 2024

As Participatory Melbourne moves into the Organising phase of the SOIL methodology, Lead Convenor Caroline Sanz-Veitch pauses to ask a handful of close colleagues and collaborators how we might reframe (and re-name) the project to better capture the work and ambitions.

March 5, 2024

As the Swimmable Birrarung project readies to shift gears in 2024, Lead Convenor Charity Mosienyane dives into everything that’s giving her hope and energy for the year to come.

March 5, 2024

At the Sustainable Living Festival in late February, Regen Streets Lead Convenor Nina Sharpe was invited on a stroll through Braybrook – and invited to consider what a regenerated Ashley Street precinct could look like with people and nature at the centre.

February 20, 2024

As Regen Melbourne enters its fourth year of existence, CEO Kaj Lofgren walks through our evolving model for systemic impact in 2024 and beyond.

February 20, 2024

Regen Streets Lead Convenor, Nina Sharpe, dives into how Regen Melbourne is working towards catalysing a wave of regenerative streets across Greater Melbourne.

February 20, 2024

With the successful launch of the City Portrait for Greater Melbourne at the tail end of 2023, Regen Melbourne’s Research Lead, Alison Whitten, explains how we’re using research to take systemic action in 2024 and beyond.

February 20, 2024

Since forming in 2020, Regen Melbourne and a committed team of researchers, environmental advocates, Indigenous elders, engineers, entrepreneurs and environmentalists have been hatching a plan to make Melbourne’s Birrarung (Yarra) River swimmable. Now they’re ready to put all that research into action.

December 13, 2023

A look back on all the seeds we’ve planted, and all the ones that are beginning to sprout in 2023.

December 12, 2023

Answering the question “what is it you actually do?”, Portfolio Lead Nicole shares the methodology Regen Melbourne has developed for our approach to systemic change.

November 22, 2023

The City Portrait is a result of epic collaboration, but what did that actually entail - read about the people involved in bringing the doughnut to life.

October 13, 2023

Celebrating local action and global connection through Doughnut Economics.

September 28, 2023

All the things we’ve heard and found in phase one, and what we think is needed going forward.

September 24, 2023

A one-month festival to connect people to the life-force of the Birrarung.

September 15, 2023

An update on the themes emerging across our portfolio.

July 20, 2023

Navigating the possibilities for a systems finance approach in service of a Swimmable Birrarung.

July 13, 2023

The multiple processes involved in creating a City Portrait for Greater Melbourne, starting with the Social Foundation.

June 22, 2023

6 months of listening to and learning from the river.

June 8, 2023

Introducing our new wildly ambitious goal: Participatory Melbourne.

May 18, 2023

The elements of what makes a Regen Melbourne project.

April 28, 2023

Moving toward the next chapter of remaking Melbourne.

April 26, 2023

Introducing the RM Lab, emerging research projects and ways to get involved.

January 30, 2023

Who are we and what is our purpose in the ecosystem of regeneration?

January 16, 2023

Developing the Regen Melbourne model.

December 16, 2022

Looking back at 2022 and where we think 2023 might take us.

October 25, 2022

What exactly does it mean to be ‘in the doughnut’, in the safe and just space for humanity?

October 25, 2022

An update on the city portrait process for Melbourne

July 7, 2022

Reimagining Melbourne, together. As if it was 2030 and we were in a Regenerative Melbourne.

March 11, 2022

From lockdown to early 2022. The origin stories of this alliance, as told by the alliance.

April 28, 2021

Towards a Regenerative Melbourne

November 2, 2020

A Melbourne that is knowledgeable, full of life, affordable, connected through culture, collaborative, enabled … that’s what we’re working towards.