WEAVE:
Regen Economy Systems Lab
Welcome! Regen Labs and our partners have been exploring what conditions support regional communities, alongside social and regenerative enterprises, to create inclusive and prosperous regenerative economies?
Access WEAVE resources and explore what we found!
The WEAVE Framework is the key outcome of our Regen Economy Systems Lab.
The framework outlines enabling conditions that communities, alongside social and regenerative enterprises, need to weave to build inclusive, regenerative economies.
Regen Labs has brought together insights from more than five years of practice, and more intensively over the past 12 months, into this framework that includes:
place - as the orienting layer
three conditions: connected communities, regenerative development, and transformative structures
ten interconnected strands of activity
WEAVE : An evolving framework for building inclusive, regenerative economies
Mini-guides
For each of the 10 strands, we are producing mini-guides. Our first is Support convening and coordination. If you would like to receive the series of guides, as they are published, please sign up here.
Who are the people critical to catalysing community-led economic transitions?
Convenors, who we call Weavers
Convenors are the people and small organisations who are deeply embedded in their places, and convene, coordinate, activate or catalyse community-led economic development. We call them weavers.
We invited convenors of economic system change from across Australia to join Regen Labs 10 month action learning journey, as part of our WEAVE Regen Economy Systems Lab.
Together, we explored how convenors create readiness, support enterprises, build relationships, align stakeholders and steward long-term economic transition.
Throughout the action learning journey we developed our practice and learned more about the critical role of weavers. We also learned that this essential work of weavers is often invisible, and underfunded. It's time this role is recognised and funded in long term economic transitions now.
We're excited to share their impact story with you.
Watch and learn more about:
the role weavers play,
the value they generate, and
the resourcing needs of this critical role.
If you are a weaver of economic change in your community , we'd love to hear from you.
Explore additional WEAVE Resources
WEAVE learns from real-world experiments.
WEAVE Regen Economy Systems Lab is an innovation collaboration learning community, commissioned by Social Enterprise Australia, and powered by Regen Labs.
Our aim has been to innovate to build a regenerative economic future, working closely with place-based social and regenerative enterprises, policy makers, finance and subject matter experts.
Over the past 12 months Regen Labs and core partners have explored, designed and run experiments. We have shared learning around practical systemic interventions - across 3-5 places and 3 key inquiry areas:
Business model innovation
Finance innovation
Social infrastructure innovation
Our Learning Partners
Place-based Partners:
Regenerating Hills and Coasts (SA)
Northern Rivers Regen Food Systems Coalition (NSW)
Highlands Home Grown Economy (NSW)
Yinhawangka Aboriginal Corporation (WA)
Learning Partners:
Regen Melbourne
Ready Communities
Digital Learning Platform:
Business for Good Network
Critical Friends
Dr Joanne McNeill, Consultant (prev. The Good Shift)
Dr Katherine Trebeck, Economic Change Lead - The Next Economy
Liam Flanagan, CEO Yinhawangka Aboriginal Corporation
Dr Jarrod Ormiston, Assoc Prof. University of Sydney (prev. UTS)
Sherryl Reddy, Network Lead Social Enterprise Australia
Our Inquiry Areas
Business model innovation reimagines the structures, ownership models, and value flows that underpin enterprise success — shifting from extractive, linear, and competitive approaches toward regenerative, inclusive, and place-based models.
Finance innovation is the redesign of capital flows, investment behaviours, and funding structures to unlock regenerative, place-based economic transformation—shifting who controls capital, how value is measured, and how risk is shared.
Social infrastructure for place-based regeneration is the scaffolding that enables regenerative enterprises to be catalytic drivers of inclusive, just, and ecological transformation at multiple scales—from neighbourhoods to bioregions.
Why Weave? Why Now?
We have learned from working with many enterprises in regional places that our current systems of business support, economic development, finance, and policy design are not working for regional communities. They’re built for a different kind of economy — one that’s extractive, centralised, and outdated.
At the same time, we are living through a once-in-a-generation opportunity: the global shift toward net zero, circularity, wellbeing economies, and regenerative business. There is also a growing recognition in Australia of the value of place-based and community-led approaches to transition.
Regional social enterprises are uniquely placed to lead this transformation. But they need the right models, funding, and enabling ecosystems to do so. WEAVE is a response to that opportunity — and to that gap.
