RegenAbility, the Future of Sustainability. This op-ed is the result of an unusual and innovative conversation between an exec and a poet, a doer and a dreamer, a Chief Sustainability Officer and a Chief Poetic Officer.

1. RegenAbility,
the Future of
Sustainability
By: Virginie Helias,
Chief Sustainability Officer, Procter & Gamble
Vincent Avanzi,
Chief Poetic Officer, The Ink Of The Future
During the lockdown with the world
on pause, the two met virtually to
discuss a possible storytelling for the
world post Covid-19 to build back
better for brands and leaders and to
use as a blueprint for the way we
do sustainable business in the
world of tomorrow.
Please discover a mix of enchanted
vision and grounded action as the
balance of both worlds. May this
manifesto bring hope and be the
roadmap for a more regenerative
way to do business and to be
human.
This op-ed is the result of an unusual
and innovative conversation
between an exec and a poet, a doer
and a dreamer, a Chief Sustainability
Officer and a Chief Poetic Officer,
one that we can listen to with words
to inspire and punchlines to reuse
and the other that we can watch in
action to back it up with real
examples to follow.
CO-BUILD-20: The Blueprint for a World Post-COVID-19

2. 1 – It’s Humanity O’clock, the
Time Has Come
Vincent Avanzi: With the world on pause
due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and much
of humanity contemplating the possible
worlds of tomorrow, we may have reached
the tipping point we’ve all been yearning
for.
The question now is: How can we as a
species —and as businesses— learn from
the past, contribute to the present and
cowrite the future together? Time is of the
essence given the climate emergency.
Horizon 2030, Action 2020. It is now
“Humanity O’clock” and “the time has
come” as Nicolas Hulot would say. The
time has come for brands and leaders to
step forward and align their business
models to the needs of our planetary
ecosystems. The time has come to focus
not just on our personal income, but on
our universal outcome.
Virginie Helias: As with planting a tree, the
best time is 20 years ago but the second
best time is now. People are embracing a
new consciousness across geographies,
committing to being more health-
conscious and more environmentally-
conscious post COVID-19 as they realize
that planetary and human health are two
sides of the same coin.
Many companies are stepping up to be a
force for good and, as we look to a future
where economy and ecology are
reconciled. Force for good, force for
growth is the new model for business.
Nobody wants to go back.
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3. 2 – The Blueprint: write the
Best Story Mankind Ever
Told
Vincent Avanzi: “In the beginning (of the
world) was the word.” (John 1:1)
Throughout history, stories and words have
always preceded reality and guided our
narratives. Maybe the time has come to
write the best story mankind ever told, a
new story for the future of humanity, a
compelling story, an inclusive, inspiring,
regenerative, poetic and collective
narrative.
As a new era awaits, we are all invited to
co-write a new “blueprint” for the world
(blue being also the color of harmony and
of the oceans on our home planet), as a
new common horizon, as a dream (as
Napoleon Hill said “a goal is a dream with a
deadline”), a pledge, a manifesto of an
“Edendorado” in Esperanto, that
universal language that can be felt and
understood by all beings sincerely,
with a story that can be desirable for all,
by all dreams and all means necessary.
Art by Catherine Nelson
Virginie Helias: During the COVID-19
pandemic, research showed that 75% of
people in the US and Europe said they
would value help from brands on ways to
be more environmentally friendly at
home.
According to Google Trends, over the past
90 days search interest in “how to live a
sustainable lifestyle” has increased by
more than 4,550%. People need help to
navigate the dilemma between safe and
sustainable – is it as hygienic as it needs to
be if I wash my clothes in cold water? What
do I do with all the extra plastic packaging
I’ve accumulated due to additional
deliveries of food and essential goods?
Can we develop a blueprint for
brands to be net-positive
contributors to society?
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4. 3 – A Poetic Title: from
“COVID-19 to “COBUILD-20”
Vincent Avanzi: Jonas Mekas wrote, “in the
very end, civilizations perish because they
listen to their politicians and not to their
poets.” Let’s start listening to the poets.
Words are a world of wonders.
Maybe poetry will shape the world and
maybe we’re all poets inside, waiting to
burst out. What type of storytelling could
we all write, and each contribute to?
Transitioning to post COVID-19 times, we
would like to propose a possible title for
this story and call it “COBUILD-20,” to
build together collectively in 2020, with a
2030 horizon, not a “brave new world” like
Huxley, but a “sane” new world, to shift the
paradigm of business and the reverse the
priorities of life, ecology and economy. We
are all aware of the “4 Ps” of sustainable
business: “People, Planet, Purpose, Profit.”
The time has come to embody them fully
and add a fifth “P” for Poetry in it to give
it a true meaning to lasting prosperity.
Virginie Helias: We need to “Build Back
Better” and we cannot do it alone. At P&G,
we are mobilized to make the planet great
again through our Ambition 2030 goals
and business agenda, a roadmap to
enable positive impacts across our supply
chain, our brands, our employees and
society through partnerships.
Working to develop solutions so that no
P&G packaging finds its way to the ocean,
the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which
P&G’s CEO David Taylor chairs, is the
largest effort to develop and scale solutions
to prevent plastic waste from leaking in the
environment, the 50 Liter (50L) home
coalition to reinvent the innovation agenda
for urban living so that the sustainable
level of 50L of water per day per person
feels like 500L. COBUILD-20 is our rallying
cry.
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Artwork The Ink Of The Future

5. 4 – Key Positive Impact
(the new KPI):
From Business as Usual to
Business with a Soul
Vincent Avanzi: We may need to change
the rules of the game and also improve the
version of players. As enlightening leaders,
let’s elevate ourselves and align our
mindsets, our footprints and our
heartbeats to go from the cycles of History
to a lasting Future, from corporations in
competition with one another to
cooperation as a higher mission with each
other, from gaining market shares to
making “humanity shares”.
From a short-term profit to a long-term
benefit, from presenting PowerPoints to
discussing “purpose points,” from less
harm to more good, from rivals and going
viral to thinking about what is really vital
for our survival, from old business models
to role models for business, from agony by
money to harmony of many, from high
times of modernity to lifestyles of sobriety,
from aiming at our Moonshot to landing
here our own “Earthshot,” basically
transitioning from business as usual to
“business with a soul.”
May we, individually and collectively, as
leaders and companies, be more “in
service” and less “for profit,” more in
balance between being and doing, nature
and culture, business and wisdom. This
may be the middle path to reach a “World-
Wise Win-Win,” where everybody, (the
people, the planet, the societies, the
shareholders, the employees, the
consumers) wins because we have
changed the hierarchy of the indicators of
success. Tomorrow, being “number one”
might not be measured by profitability, but
the sustainability and the level of positive
impact. After so many years of talking
about it, let’s change the indicators.
The acronym KPI? Let’s replace the “target
scorecard” of Key Performance Indicators
by a “planet postcard” of Key Positive
Impacts, aligned with the United Nations’
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Statistics already start to show that the
companies with the most social and
environmental impact will be the ones
that will prevail in the near future. One
sign of planetary awareness is also the fact
that we are seeing the emergence of a new
generation of leaders and a new civilization
of humans that will, as consumers and
citizens tomorrow, gradually demand this
alignment from organizations in order to
adhere to brands.
Virginie Helias: P&G invented brand
management in 1925 with Ivory and
Camay. 100 years later, we are ready to re-
invent brand building. We call it Brand
2030. All our leadership brands are
committing to a measurable and time-
bound path to be net positive contributors
to society – through innovation that
enabling responsible consumption,
leveraging their voice to promote
sustainable living and reducing their
impacts from material sourcing to end of
life. Those are our new KPIs (Key Positive
Impact Indicators).
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6. 5 – Replace the Word
“Sustainability” (Ability to
Sustain) with “RegenAbility”
(Ability to Regenerate)
Vincent Avanzi: With new narratives
generally come new words that create new
realities. Take the word “sustainability” for
example, which has been trendy for over a
decade now. If we look at it from a different
angle, it literally means the “ability to
sustain.” Maybe the ability to sustain the
world as it was prior to COVID-19 is not the
solution. What ability could we be looking
for instead? Our “human-ability,” our
“common future-ability,” our “oneness-
ability,” our life preservation ability or
simply our “regenerability” as our ability to
regenerate resources to make the
economy go into a virtuous endless circle,
just as the planet goes round, hence
respecting the cycles of all living species on
its soil?
We would like to propose a neologism
and call it “RegenAbility,” as a contraction
of “regenerability,” the ability to regenerate,
to make it modern, unique, meaningful
and mark the time. The lexical field
contains power and words rightfully put
together are action. Change the words to
change the world, Change our perspective
and the way we look at things, not think
but also feel, not only with mental eyes, but
also with poetic hearts and minds.
Virginie Helias: Can a shampoo brand be a
force for regeneration? Herbal Essences is
committing to protect endangered plants
and promote plant biodiversity. In partnership
with Royal Kew Botanic Gardens, their goal
is to save 300 plant species from extinction
and preserve the ecosystems of the top 10
plant extracts used in their products. They
have started activating their commitment
with the “20 by 20” campaign (save 20 plants
in 2020 in the US) in collaboration with Kew’s
Millennium Seed Bank.
Dawn’s superior grease cutting power led
them to commit to protect aquatic wildlife by
keeping the birds and their environment
clean. Their goal is to reach a 90% bird release
rate in future oil response rescue efforts.
Charmin, Forest Stewardship and Rainforest
Alliance certified, is committed to creative
collective solutions that positively impact
people and forests in the world and for every
tree they use, at least one is re-grown.
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7. Virginie Helias: Re-Generation for P&G
means Climate Re-Vert, Plastic Re-invent
and Water Recycle.
• Climate: 100% of the electricity we
purchase in North America and most
of Europe is renewable; our
technology enables people to use less
warm water when they use our
products (e.g., with Cascade Platinum
you save up to 20 gallon per wash
when you skip the pre-rinse before
putting your dishes in the
dishwasher).
• Plastic: We develop solutions to
accelerate the circular economy –
PureCycle, an invention from a P&G
scientist that turns recycled
polypropylene into a near virgin state;
Holy Grail, a coalition led by P&G that
qualified the use of digital watermarks
on packaging to improve sorting;
LOOP, a shopping platform with
products in durable refillable
packaging. P&G was the 1st
manufacturers to sign up for the pilots
with 11 brands.
• Water: 70% of our products need
water to be used. Beyond developing
water efficient technology or
waterless products (Waterless Hair
Care line), we have initiated the 50L
Home Coalition to reimagine water
usage in urban homes: reduce,
recycle, reuse, purify and enrich water
so that people use less and enjoy it
more.
6 – Enlightening leaders, we
are the “RE” Generation!
Vincent Avanzi: And may we be the “RE”
Generation. The one to lead the way to RE-
enchant the world, RE-poetize our
societies, RE-connect with nature, RE-boot
our economic system, RE-think our ways of
living, RE-build our society and economics
for the future, RE-lease the human passion
and our best potential, RE-veal our most
precious dreams, RE-vive the roots of who
we are, RE-turn to the essentials of our
humanity in terms of life, love, solidarity,
empathy and biodiversity. And basically
RE-connect truly with people, gather
together and not separate the elements of
nature, a philosophy we inherited from
Descartes. As Satish Kumar (founder of the
Schumacher College) would say, “soil, soul
and society” are interdependent. RE as RE-
invent tomorrow with RE-silience today.
This is a “once in a mankind” opportunity
so let’s take a stand with both of our hands
and be that RE-generation, not a mere RE-
peat generation. It might be our own RE-
volution, to cosign a “RE-Generation
Declaration”, for life preservation, better
life relations and international
conversations. A “You-Turn” to not reach a
point of no-return in ten years from now.
Horizon 2030, Action 2020.
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8. 7 – The Birth of “Chief
RegenAbility Officers”
Vincent Avanzi: We can switch job titles as
well. Inside companies, we would like to
launch a movement to embrace new
“Chief RegenAbility Officers” that will
lead the way in helping corporations
embody this new narrative to influence the
entire company and therefore impact the
eight billion people on this planet.
Change the job functions to change the
company direction and put more poetry
in your job description, in your job title and
in your leadership in order to further re-
enchant capitalism and adding a much
needed dose of humanism and life wisdom
prism.
Virginie Helias: I once called myself a Chief
Agitator Officer, often playing the role of an
internal activist, trailblazing and
challenging our business leaders to make
sustainability an integral part of their
business agenda.
Today 83% of our employees say that they
are contributing to their organization’
sustainability efforts (an increase of nine
points compared to two years ago).
Sustainability is now built-in, not bolted
on. The task ahead is to do more, bolder,
faster and with greater positive impact.
Reducing our footprint is not good enough,
we need a blueprint for regeneration of our
society and our planet. Let’s create a
movement of Chief RegenAbility Officers
(a side benefit: we won’t confuse CSO with
Chief Supply Officers anymore!).
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9. 8 – One Humanity: may the
“New Normal” be Written
with Two “L”s for “All”
Vincent Avanzi: In the end, we know, if any
doubts were still possible, that the planet
cannot be treated as a mere market and
that life really has no price. As Robin
Williams would say in a modern Corporate
Poets Society, “poetry, beauty, romance,
love… these are what we stay alive for.”
Sustainability and RegenAbility are our
common responsibility as One Humanity.
The companies of tomorrow that are the
most engaged and responsible will
outperform the rest. Start the transition
now. Be part of the solution, not part of
the pollution. The key of the story may be
in finding the collective purpose of
mankind, our grand horizon, our collective
purpose, our higher mission.
The future of our planet is in our hands and
everything is still possible. And maybe
Adam Smith was incorrect about the
“invisible hand” of the market, maybe the
true hands are the helping hand we give
others and the writing hand to cosign our
own story. Imagine eight billion people all
“co-creating equal.”
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream,
a dream we dream together is reality,” said
a wise man once from the Beatles in a song
destined to touch us all. All brands and
leaders, this is our chance for lasting
change.
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10. Virginie Helias: Imagine a ship with 163
corporate leaders, sustainability
practitioners and green activists, a
collaborative at sea, embarked on a
mission to the North Atlantic gyre to
collectively develop new breakthrough
solutions to end the ocean plastic pollution.
The leader-ship of tomorrow, partnering
across the value chain, from industry to
activists to develop regenerative solutions.
Enlightened leaders and RegenAbility
Officers, we are the ones we have been
waiting for!
Welcome all aboard the Enlightening
Leader-Ship
Join the ship and add your words, your
vision, your actions. And may our ambitions
meet our common horizon.
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The time has come to transcend ourselves
and reveal our true essence as human
heroes in action and sustainable pioneers.
To be an example, be an “activist” as
Emmanuel Faber (Danone) would say. This
is our time now to lead the way. We are the
first generations to feel the effects of
climate change and maybe the last that
can do something about it. And maybe the
cosmos kept the best for last. If “poesis” in
ancient Greek means “to create,” be a
corporate poet to transform our reality.
Let’s give this story life, together.
All businesses have as motto to change the
world, now’s the time to really contribute
to changing the world for the better.
Welcome in this exciting new journey of
Humanity, aboard the boat of our common
future, the enlightening leader “ship.”
May our ambitions meet the horizon in
order for the “new normal” to be written
with two “L”s for “all.” Finally, we all have a
key word of life, pick yours now, make a
commitment and change the world with it.
CO-BUILD-20 to co-write and re-invent the
future. Back to you… for us. Our time is
now. Horizon 2030, Action 2020.

11. Virginie Helias is the Chief Sustainability
Officer of Procter & Gamble.
With over 30 years of experience at P&G in
Brand Management and Innovation across
multiple multi-billion dollar brands and
regions, she is also recognized for her
visioning, change management and
leadership development skills. In July 2011,
she recommended the creation of a new
position, Global Sustainability Brand
Director, working across all P&G business
units and regions. Her mission was to
embed sustainability into the innovation,
brand-building and everyday business
practices at P&G. In July 2016, she was
promoted to Vice President of Global
Sustainability, in recognition of the work
she has led to make sustainability a core
business strategy, an innovation driver and
a catalyst for a more resilient organization.
She is the architect of the “Ambition 2030”
goals, an industry-leading roadmap that is
transforming how P&G is integrating
sustainability across its supply chain,
innovation and brand building. Virginie has
received the 2018 Women Leading Award
from the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development and was
selected as one of the 25 women shaking
up the Climate movement in 2020. In 2019,
she became the first P&G Chief
Sustainability Officer.
Vincent Avanzi is a Chief Poetic Officer,
author, speaker, storyteller and speech
writer. Former Microsoft employee and
twice a globe-trotter, he founded The Ink
Of The Future to reenchant the world with
poetry. He developed the concept of
“corporate poetry” to bring out the soul of
corporations and develop the human
global awareness around sustainability,
singularity, wisdom and harmony.
He is the author of eight books including
“Harmony and the Genius Spot of
Mankind” (Human Odyssey) and "Trouver
son Point Génial" (Hachette) and was
dubbed an “enlightened leader” by
Decideurs Magazine. Recurrent speaker at
Sustainable Brands and creator of many
neologisms included "CoBuild20", he is also
a consultant on brand identity and
accompanies CEOs and leaders on their
transformational journey, their storytelling
and the art of writing inspiring speeches.
“Poetry will save the world and we’re all
poets”.
More info on www.vincentavanzi.com.
Watch the poetic journey “The Universe in a Unique
Verse (The return of Pangea)”.
About the Authors
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