The following project suggestions can be taken up by students alone or with the help of teachers and mentors. These suggestions promote understanding of Regenerative Economics through creativity, collaboration, communication, research, and service. The suggestions can also inspire other engagement ideas from students.
For graded projects, teachers and students should agree on the assessment criteria based on the type of project and school or programme guidelines.
Suggestions are tagged by relevant section to help students match ideas to their interests.
Ecological impact of products
Choose one product and track its journey through the linear economy — from raw material extraction to manufacturing, transport, use, and disposal. At each stage, identify the main ecological impacts, such as energy use, carbon emissions, pollution, or resource depletion. Record what materials and energy are used, and what happens to them at the end of the product’s life (for example, landfill, incineration, or recycling).
Sections: 3.1.5, 3.2.2
Circular product redesign
Choose an everyday product and explore how it could be redesigned using the three principles of circular design explained in the book and in Section 3.4.2 on circular business models. Think about how the redesign could eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials through repair, reuse, or recycling, and regenerate natural systems by working with renewable resources or safe biological cycles. Present your redesigned product in drawings, models, or a short report.
Sections: 3.1.5, 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.4.2
Nature-inspired business solutions
Use biomimicry patterns (nature’s mutualism, safe chemistry, resilience, etc. from Section 1.4.1) to propose business practices that mimic natural systems.
Sections: 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3
Community needs and business map
Create a map of businesses in your community including businesses such as food shops, clothing stores, repair services, and others. Assess whether these businesses help meet people’s real basic needs (like food, shelter, clothing, care, transport), and whether they do so in fair and sustainable ways. Highlight where needs are well supported and where there are gaps or problems, such as affordability, accessibility, or ecological impact. Present your findings on a physical map, digital map, or poster.
Sections: 3.1.1, 3.2.2, 3.2.4, 3.1.6, 3.2.5
Neighbourhood regenerative business idea
Work in groups to design a small business that directly benefits your local community and is regenerative and distributive by design (repair service, tool library, pay-it-forward bakery). Present how it would strengthen social systems.
Sections: 3.3.1-3.3.5, 3.4.1, 3.4.2, 3.4.3
Market story collage
Spend time in a local market or shopping street. Collect stories, photos, or short video clips from stalls and shops. Ask sellers and buyers why they are there, what they value, or how their goods are produced. Combine these into a creative collage (poster, short film, or digital slideshow) that shows how markets connect households, producers, and communities.
Sections: 3.1.1, 3.1.4, 3.1.5, 3.1.6
Business deep design documentary
Choose a local business and explore its “deep design”: purpose, networks, governance, ownership, and finance. Interview the owner or staff, film or record your conversations, and capture visuals of the workplace. Turn your findings into a short documentary or podcast episode that shows how design choices shape what a business can or cannot do for people and planet.
Sections: 3.3.1–3.3.5
The Story of Capitalism
Tell the story of how enclosure, colonisation, and other factors have shaped power and inequality through capitalism. Use creative storytelling tools such as an illustrated timeline, comic strip, or digital story map. Bring in images, quotes, or data to show how historical choices continue to affect today’s economy.
Sections: 3.2.1, 3.2.2, 3.2.4
Hidden costs photo essay
Pick one product (like a fast-fashion T-shirt, smartphone, or chocolate bar) and create a photo essay or illustrated story that reveals its hidden costs: environmental damage, low wages, or unfair trade. Pair images with short captions to show what the market price leaves out.
Sections: 3.1.5, 3.2.2, 3.2.5
Sufficiency Stories
Interview family or community members about times they managed with less — reusing clothes, sharing tools, or repairing items. Collect these as short written pieces, audio clips, or drawings and present them as a storytelling collection. Show how living with sufficiency can challenge market pressures for endless consumption.
Sections: 3.2.2, 3.2.5
Note: many of the activities in the creative storytelling and documentation section can be turned into an exhibit, especially if a number of students undertake the project and can exhibit their work together.
Exhibit: regenerative businesses
Explore the case studies of regenerative businesses on the DEAL website. Select a few examples that inspire you and create an exhibit showing how these firms are redesigning their purpose, networks, governance, ownership, or finance. Use posters, models, or digital displays to share their stories with your school or community.
Sections: 3.3.1–3.3.5 (The deep design of firms)
Visual map of a circular economy
Use drawings, diagrams, or physical models to show how circular business models work compared to linear ones. Include examples such as modular phones (Fairphone) or waste-to-fertiliser businesses (Sanergy). Turn this into an interactive display where viewers can trace flows of materials.
Sections: 3.4.2 (Circular business models), 3.3.1 (The deep design of firms)
Note: developing games and simulations is very challenging. But imagining how games and simulations could work, even in the absence of full development, helps develop critical and creative thinking.
Market simulation
Set up a simple role-play in class. Half the students are buyers with a limited budget, and half are sellers with products to sell. A few students act as regulators who can add rules (like minimum wage, safety checks, or taxes). Play a few rounds to see how prices, supply, and demand shift. Debrief by linking what happened to real market dynamics.
Sections: 3.1.1–3.1.4
Enclosure game
Start with all players sharing a common resource (like tokens representing land, water, or pasture). Everyone can take what they need. After a few rounds, introduce “enclosure”: only some players now control the tokens and can charge others for access. Discuss how this changes fairness, cooperation, and inequality.
Sections: 3.2.1, 3.2.2
Regenerative business challenge
Develop a card-based challenge where each group starts with a fictional business and a set of resource cards (money, workers, raw materials, community support). In each round, they must decide whether to invest in profit, people, or planet. Random event cards (e.g. climate shock, new law, worker strike) test how resilient their business design is.
Sections: 3.3.1–3.3.5, 3.4.1
Moral limits debate game
Give groups cards with controversial items (e.g. clean water, healthcare, personal data, human organs). One team argues they can be sold in markets, the other argues they should remain outside. After each round, the class votes. Reflect on the “moral limits of markets.”
Sections: 3.2.5 (Moral limits of markets)
Local store needs audit
Visit a local grocery store or another shop with many products. Walk through the aisles and decide which items meet real human needs (Section 1.3.3) and which encourage unnecessary consumption. Write short notes explaining your reasoning, and if possible take photos or sketches. Share your findings in a report or presentation that shows the difference between need-satisfying and unnecessary goods. Reflect on what this reveals about how markets shape consumption.
Sections: 3.1.4, 3.2.2, 3.3.2
Living with less challenge
For one week (or longer if you can), track your own consumption of new goods, such as clothes, packaged snacks, electronics, or other non-essentials. Try to reduce unnecessary purchases and instead make use of what you already have, borrow, or share. Keep a journal of what choices you made, what was easy or difficult, and how consuming less affected your wellbeing. At the end, reflect on how markets encourage extra consumption and how businesses could design differently to support sufficiency.
Sections: 3.1.4, 3.2.2, 3.3.2 3.4.2
Spot the greenwash
Find a company or product that advertises itself as sustainable. Research some warning signs of greenwashing and try to determine the credibility of the business's claims. Present your findings to your class, or identify another way to report out your learning about greenwashing and your product analysis.
Sections: 3.3.3, 3.4.3
Case study on monopolies
Research a real-world monopoly (tech, energy, agriculture or other). Find out how it gained power and the effects on stakeholders (consumers, workers, Earth systems, commons / communities and the state)
Sections: 3.2.2, 3.2.4, 3.2.5
Business case study with the Doughnut framework
Select any business in your community. Use one or more primary research strategies from the list below, as well as secondary research, to gather information about the purpose, networks, governance, ownership, and finance. Write up your findings as a short case study, following the style of DEAL’s business case studies, and suggest where the business is regenerative and where it could improve.
Sections: 3.3.1–3.3.5
There are many primary research techniques you can use to find out about businesses in markets and their connections to community and Earth systems:
Interviews, possibly with prompts
Warm data lab - Note: a warm data lab should have a trained host.
You should always try to get consent from participants in research if you can.
Future market manifesto (as a zine or poster series)
Create a manifesto zine or poster series for what a fair and sustainable market for a product should look like. Include rules, values, and concrete examples of what would and wouldn’t be for sale (e.g. “Clean water is a right, not a product”). Add slogans, artwork, or symbols to make it visually powerful. Share it with classmates or display it publicly.
Sections: 3.1.4–3.1.6, 3.2.5
Regenerative business of 2050
Imagine a business in 2050 that operates fully within planetary boundaries. Write a 'day in the life' story of its workers, customers, or community. Describe how its purpose, networks, governance, ownership, and finance support people and planet. Illustrate your story with drawings or digital art to bring it to life.
Sections: 3.3.2–3.3.5, 3.4.1
Bioregional economy vision map (interactive design)
Draw or digitally design a map of a bioregional economy where businesses are locally rooted and ecosystems are thriving. Show how food, energy, and goods move around the region, where waste goes, and how communities are linked. Add notes or symbols to highlight how these systems meet needs fairly and sustainably.
Sections: 3.4.3
Regenerative business pitch competition
Work in groups to create a “Shark Tank”-style pitch for a regenerative business idea. Outline its purpose, networks, ownership, and financing, and explain how it would help meet human needs in your community. Present to the class as if pitching to investors, with slides, posters, or prototypes.
Sections: 3.3.1–3.3.5, 3.4.1, 3.4.2
Shadow a regenerative entrepreneur
Spend time with a local entrepreneur or intrapreneur working on ecological or social goals. Ask about their purpose, networks, governance, ownership, and finance. Record their challenges and successes in a short write-up, video, or poster.
Sections: 3.3.1–3.3.5, 3.4.1
Job profile in the circular economy
Research a job that exists in a circular business model (such as repair technician, recycling manager, or designer for reuse). Interview someone working in this field, or if that’s not possible, research through company websites and news stories. Create a profile showing how this job helps reduce waste and regenerate resources.
Sections: 3.4.2
School intrapreneurship project
Act as an intrapreneur in your own school. Identify one area (like energy use, waste, or food services) where the school could act more regeneratively. Propose a concrete change, explain the benefits, and share it with the student council or school leadership.
Sections: 3.3.2, 3.4.1
Certification investigation
Research one certification scheme (such as Fairtrade, FSC, or B Corp). Visit or contact a certified business in your area, or ask consumers why certification matters to them. Present how the scheme influences business practices and buyer choices.
Sections: 3.4.4
Campaign for regenerative businesses
Create or support a student campaign encouraging businesses to adopt regenerative practices. Focus on your school, neighbourhood, or favourite shops.This could be posters, a social media project, or a short event. Show how these businesses can meet needs fairly and within ecological limits.
Sections: 3.3.2 (The purpose of firms), 3.4.3 (Relocalisation, bioregionalism and business)