Regenerative Mindset – A Battle of the Systems
Summary
This opening panel from ITB Berlin 2026's Responsible Tourism Track examines the fundamental shift from sustainable to regenerative tourism, framing it as a systemic reorientation rather than an incremental upgrade. Moderated by Prof. Dr. Willy Legrand (IU International University of Applied Sciences), the panel featured Anna Pollock (Founder, Conscious.Travel), David Leventhal (Operating Manager, Playa Viva; Founder, Regenerative Travel), and Susanne Becken (Professor of Sustainable Tourism, Griffith University, Australia).
The session opened with a stark framing: less than 1% of companies report on biodiversity impact, and decades of sustainable tourism efforts — green certifications, carbon footprint measurement, operational efficiency — have proven insufficient. The panelists argued that regenerative tourism is not 'sustainability on steroids' (Pollock), not 'extractive mining but farming that creates abundance' (Leventhal), and not 'a product or marketing strategy' (Becken).
Anna Pollock argued that the core paradigm shift is from seeing landscapes, cultures, and communities as resources to be extracted from, toward understanding businesses as participants within living systems. She invoked the Gaia hypothesis — that Earth itself is a living system — and urged practitioners to 'think in wholes, not parts.' She emphasized that the old extractive system is already collapsing, and the real challenge is navigating the transition toward a new way of being, where hospitality plays a key role in reconnecting people to place and community.
David Leventhal drew on approximately 20 years of operating Playa Viva, an 86-hectare regenerative resort in Mexico. He described the evolution: what began as a planned glamping operation became a certified regenerative enterprise. Playa Viva achieved the highest B Corp certification score of any hotel in the world at the time of certification. Key features include an organic regenerative farm growing up the valley, a citizen scientist water quality monitoring program, a community cooperative (run by women who previously lacked economic prospects), and a turtle sanctuary where former poachers now earn more in one week than they previously earned in four to six weeks. He cited a Cousteau quote as a guiding principle: 'We don't protect what we don't love. We don't love what we don't understand. We don't understand what we're not taught.' Leventhal admitted a key mistake: not conducting a baseline ecological study until almost 10 years into the project, making it impossible to measure early impact. He is now applying regenerative development processes to a project in the Dominican Republic — a multi-phase development of 800 hectares projected to eventually reach 10,000 to 17,000 rooms.
Susanne Becken contributed a research and measurement lens. She argued that data alone does not drive change — literacy requires three components: knowledge (head), practice (hands), and care (heart). She referenced her paper 'Knowledge Alone Will Not Fix It' and connected regenerative tourism to indigenous knowledge systems, which she described as experimental, tested over time, and interwoven with meaning and stories that structure behavior. She cautioned against premature regenerative certification, expressing concern that global standardization is 'almost an oxymoron' in the context of place-specific living systems.
On certification, the panelists were divided in emphasis: Leventhal supports developing a regenerative certification layer atop existing frameworks like B Corp; Pollock urged caution given the prematurity of the concept's depth and the risk of 'a mass of people rushing to create certification programs without real depth'; Becken agreed with caution, warning against standardizing what is fundamentally place-specific. All three agreed that certification standards should keep 'moving the goalpost' rather than locking in fixed thresholds.
The panel closed with individual calls to action: Becken urged embracing regeneration because 'it gives people hope'; Leventhal called on businesses to 'think about the upstream and downstream touch points' across the entire ecosystem; Pollock urged practitioners to 'move out of your head and start feeling and sensing what's happening in the world around you.'
Key Takeaways
- •Less than 1% of companies report on biodiversity impact, underscoring the inadequacy of current sustainability efforts. The moderator cited this statistic as context for why incremental approaches — certifications, carbon measurement, operational optimization — are insufficient responses to the scale of ecological breakdown.
- •Anna Pollock defined the core regenerative shift as moving from an extractive relationship with place to participation within living systems: 'We are not seeing objects out there to be extracted from, used or even controlled, but us being part of a living system.' She argued that the old extractive system is already collapsing, removing the need to convince incumbents to change — adaptation is now inevitable.
- •David Leventhal framed regeneration as a business imperative, not just an ethical one. He argued that high-touch experiential travel is where the market is heading as society becomes more high-tech, that attracting talent requires being 'a cause not just a company,' and that regenerative investment in living systems builds balance sheet resilience beyond what operational sustainability metrics capture.
- •Playa Viva achieved the highest B Corp certification score of any hotel in the world. Over approximately 20 years, it evolved from a planned glamping operation into a regenerative resort with an organic farm, a citizen scientist water monitoring program, a women's cooperative, and a turtle sanctuary where former poachers now earn more in one week than they previously earned in four to six weeks.
- •A key admitted mistake at Playa Viva was not conducting a baseline ecological study until almost 10 years into the project. Leventhal stated this directly: 'We really couldn't see the impact of what we did.' He now recommends starting any regenerative project with a baseline study as a first priority.
- •Leventhal is scaling regenerative principles to a project in the Dominican Republic: 800 hectares, multi-phase, projected to eventually reach 10,000 to 17,000 rooms. He argued that regeneration scales through process — 'understanding the history of place' — not through copy-paste replication of a specific model.
- Susanne Becken introduced a three-part literacy framework for meaningful regenerative action: knowledge (head), practice (hands), and care (heart). She referenced her paper 'Knowledge Alone Will Not Fix It,' arguing that data without engagement and genuine caring cannot drive systemic change.
Transcript
Lovely to see you all. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. ITV, are you still here? ITV convention 2026. I know it is the third day uh of the ITV 2026 is the responsible tourism track. So, you are all heroes for our planet. Thank you so much for coming by. Thank you for joining us virtually. And we are diving together into our afternoon here. And for that I hand over to the one and only. Please give him a big round of applause. Vinnro. All right. So, welcome back. So, all morning we've built uh we've be...
