On the Sussex And The City podcast, Richard Freeman speaks with Jenny Anderson, founder of the Really Regenerative Centre - a bioregional learning hub based in Sussex but working globally.
Jenny is a do-er, and an agitator, and fully invested in helping Sussex think differently about its future - starting with the uncomfortable truth that the old systems are broken.
“We’ve been pushing ourselves towards a polycrisis — and what can we do about that?”
From regenerative agriculture and nature-based housebuilding to reshaping how places define themselves, Jenny’s work is a challenge to business-as-usual. In her words, “a different future becomes possible” - but only if we stop pretending the current economic model is sustainable.
🌍 What does regeneration really mean?
Jenny explains regeneration as the most natural thing in the world:
“It’s the impulse of life to continue to create the conditions conducive to life. How do we realign human, economic and cultural systems with the principles that have guaranteed life on Earth for 3.8 billion years?”
Rather than scale, she argues, Sussex should think in terms of bioregions - whole places with interconnected systems of economy, culture and ecology.
“Scaling the production of food, which farmers have been told to do since the post-war environment, has been done with artificial inputs... that has helped to crash biodiversity, helped to lose soil fertility. If we think historically, all of the peoples that have come into Sussex haven’t come from the north down. They’ve come from the coast in.”
From Roman trade routes to oyster-shell concrete and sheep’s wool insulation, Jenny sees Sussex as a place rich in stories, skills, and natural resources — but still lacking the story of place to tie it all together.
🚜 So what could a future Sussex mayor do?
“There are many different kinds of mayors that you can have… You can have a visionary mayor or you can have a managerial mayor. I’d vote for a visionary mayor any day of the week.”
Jenny’s not interested in politics-as-usual. She wants participatory leadership that listens deeply, convenes courageously, and co-creates long-term ideas with people across the region. That means investment in food systems, public health, localised supply chains - and fundamentally rethinking finance.
“Profit is important. We’re not saying profit isn’t important. But the leap to a regenerative economy is about us learning how to really deeply and radically collaborate - and look at the good of the whole before we look at individualism.”
And it’s not hypothetical. Jenny points to Fife in Scotland, where public, private and community actors have worked together to repatriate food production, enable young farmers, and rebuild infrastructure like flour mills - not for profit extraction, but shared value.
“We need to stand for something. We need to say what these different mosaics of Sussex are going to be in the world. What’s our role going to be - not just for us, but for future generations?”
🎧 Listen to the episode here
%20-%20newsletter%20(13).png?upscale=true&width=1120&upscale=true&name=SATC%20100%20(60%20x%2021%20cm)%20-%20newsletter%20(13).png)