Climate Change

Bioregional Weaving Labs

In Bioregions all over Europe local stakeholder processes are facilitated in order to tackle the regions’ most burning issues, e.g. drought, water management, biodiversity loss.

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Insight

About the project

Reaching the European Union’s climate neutrality and land restoration targets will need a bold, systemic, and bottom-up approach as well as equipped leaders and communities across Europe to engage in these actions. The people, the solutions, and the resources are already there, but actors are still fragmented and not aligned around shared goals. The Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective – a growing assembly of international system-changing organisations, coordinated by Ashoka and Commonland – is trying to weave them all together in 10 bioregions reaching over 1 million ha of land and sea, with the potential to activate and engage 100.000 changemakers per bioregion.

Until the end of 2023, the Bioregional Weaving Labs Collective established 8 BWLs: in Ireland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, France, Austria, Romania and Spain – with more to follow across Europe.

The ‘Bioregional Weaving Lab’ concept is a geographically grounded multi-stakeholder partnership process that weaves together people, place and projects, equipping and supporting them to organise for transformative change and to reimagine a future for their bioregions. The bioregions are being supported with co-created tools, frameworks, and resources. This enables them to engage their wider communities to also play a role and be changemakers. The international Backbone Team facilitates an overarching Learning Network for the local Weaving Teams of all BWLs to continuously learn, build expertise, and exchange best practises in facilitating a BWL to enhance multi-stakeholder partnerships across bioregions. The Learning Network also engages with EU policymakers and other transregional actors.

In each bioregion, the collective works with a local partner, who establishes a Weaving Team. These highly networked individuals from different organisations serve as connectors and facilitators of a Bioregional Weaving Lab (BWL). After careful research, a cohort of 60-80 stakeholders ((farmers, fishermen, landowners, investors, corporate leaders, shareholders, policymakers, educators, community members, etc.) is invited to a geographically grounded, 3-4 year multi-stakeholder partnership process.

With their local communities the stakeholders are better equipped to drive their own systems change towards a regenerative bioregion. For that goal, they align on a shared vision, formulate a joint mission, and map the needs of their bioregions. Through a carefully designed process, based on Theory-U, they gain a clear understanding of the root causes that drive biodiversity loss and the interconnected poly-crises (climate change, pollution, socio-economic inequality) in the landscape. They align on a holistic landscape plan that can generate 4 returns in the bioregion: natural. social, financial returns and return of inspiration. They form teams to prototype innovations and connect with funders and investors who are interested in funding/investing on a bioregion scale.