Can regenerative practice fix the partnership problem?

The built environment sector stands at an inflection point. Major schemes have stalled, developers are struggling to get projects off the ground, and traditional partnership models are under financial strain and political uncertainty.

Recent Future of London research with a dozen senior leaders from across the built environment found that current partnership approaches aren’t delivering what communities or organisations need.

Trust deficits often create adversarial dynamics precisely when collaboration is essential, while short-term thinking driven by political cycles and commercial pressures prevents the sustained stewardship that transformative change requires. Risk aversion in procurement and governance stifles innovation when we need it most.

The challenges are urgent, but so is the appetite for change. The consensus from our recent roundtable on the future of partnerships in the built environment is that current pressures can be used to create opportunities. The time is now because power dynamics are shifting, and developers now need the public sector more than ever, creating an opportunity to reset relationships in more collaborative terms.

So, what change is needed? The sector recognises that delivering within existing constraints isn’t enough. As one public sector leader put it: “This shouldn’t be about creating a better version of existing partnerships. We need to radically rethink how we transcend current constraints.”

Future of London wants to support the sector to radically rethink partnerships, and so this roundtable brought together senior leaders to examine whether regenerative practice – a concept gaining traction as key to long-term social, economic and environmental sustainability – could offer a framework for genuinely different partnership working in the future.

Taking the regenerative opportunity

Regenerative practice, an emergent global approach, moves beyond sustainability to a model where development actively gives back: socially, environmentally and economically. As Dima Zogheib from Arup explained at the roundtable, regenerative practice is systemic, intersectional and equitable – it aims to give back and to create cities that thrive rather than merely survive.

Examples shared by Dima included Amsterdam’s Habitat Royale, which integrates habitats for local species into building design, and London’s Wild West End initiative, where landowners have collaborated to restore biodiversity in the heart of the capital and create greater connections with nature. These projects demonstrate the power of partnerships to deliver outcomes that benefit both people and planet.

But regenerative practice is not just about green roofs and ‘sponge cities’. It is about embedding resilience and equity into the DNA of urban development. That means thinking in systems, breaking down silos and creating long-term value together.

Ultimately, regenerative practice is very human. It is trust-based, relational and situated in place. One roundtable participant commented: “What I love about regenerative design is it’s human right, and the solutions around it are very, very human.”

And as with all relationships, time is required to get it right and to involve all stakeholders meaningfully, including communities. A senior public sector leader noted, “Getting the trust and the relationship actually takes an investment of time in the people who are involved in it… you’ve got to be prepared to put the hard yards into that.”

Reimagining partnerships

With this regenerative framework in mind, the roundtable examined three critical barriers preventing such partnerships from flourishing. Our analysis of the conversation has identified possible pathways forward for each.

Challenge 1: Trust deficits and power imbalances

A persistent “us vs them” dynamic undermines collaboration between public and private sectors. As one participant explained, the fundamental disconnect is structural: public sector needs are holistic – spanning housing, transport, and utilities – while private capital remains driven primarily by financial returns rather than broader societal needs. A new way of working that acknowledges and works with these differences is essential to move forward.

The regenerative opportunity: upskill a future generation of bold, collaborative leaders
To address this core challenge, the built environment sector must champion leaders who focus on systemic thinking and more collaborative approaches. As one participant put it: “I’d like to see more common purpose in future partnerships. Where we know what we’re doing and why we’re working together, and there’s no hierarchy.”

Collaboration requires clarity of purpose. As one private sector leader noted: “There needs to be a really clear strategic vision that’s well communicated at the start to attract the right partners to come aboard, which sounds obvious, but it does get missed or gets diluted.”  But clarity of purpose “doesn’t mean you have to be the same.” and each side of the partnership can have different goals within a more collaborative approach.

The key is to move from transactional to transformative relationships. We should invest in a new generation of leaders who are equipped to reset power dynamics, generate transparency, and establish joint purpose within a new collaborative framework.

The group agreed that to achieve this more collaborative way of working, the sector must learn to better embrace uncertainty as a learning opportunity, rather than a risk to be eliminated. A public sector leader challenged the table: “Are you willing to acknowledge that what you’re doing… is intended as experimental, and so that might mean it might fail, and that’s okay. The point is, you’ve created a supportive learning environment from which to fail, with your partner on that.”

Creating space for experimentation requires piloting regenerative approaches through small-scale interventions that build trust and evidence that relational approaches deliver results.

However, one participant cautioned against inaction in the face of urgent delivery challenges: “I think there is a real balance between planning everything out and getting on with things… it does require some element of being bold.” A critical question for Future of London is: how do we upskill and support a pipeline of bold leaders ready to work in a new, collaborative way?

Challenge 2: Rigid practices that undermine innovation

Traditional public-private partnerships frequently follow inflexible procedural rules, particularly around procurement, which prioritise process over impact. Briefs are often written to meet regulatory requirements rather than deliver collaborative results, and risk is transferred rather than shared. This lack of flexibility erodes trust, reducing partnerships to transactional exercises.

One participant captured the problem succinctly: procurement rarely selects for relationships, yet trust takes time. “The fundamental issue is it’s a regulatory function that demands competition at the cost of a better outcome.”

Regenerative opportunity: reform procurement for outcomes, not process

The roundtable explored a fundamental shift: “Is there a way to move more to a framework type approach, rather than the commissioning type approach, where you enter into a relationship that says: this is the way we can achieve best value, but best value measured in a very different way.”

This would mean embedding relational working, flexibility and collaboration into procurement from the start: valuing relationships and outcomes above lowest cost and designing tenders for joint outcomes rather than compliance. If this could be achieved, then procurement could become a catalyst for innovation and collaboration rather than a barrier to it.

However, participants pointed out that there are existing alternatives to procurement that demonstrate this is already possible – we need to think differently about the tools we have available.

Challenge 3: Excluding communities and nature

Communities are often consulted but rarely empowered, and nature is seldom considered a stakeholder, yet both are central to regenerative thinking. One rare example of genuine community involvement was shared at the roundtable where residents were empowered to influence commercial decision-making. While time-consuming and costly, they considered this essential for truly transformative outcomes.

While participants agreed that protecting nature is essential, they acknowledged a difficult reality: when the sector faces urgent housing delivery pressures and viability challenges, elevating ecological regeneration to equal partnership status feels like a stretch. This tension is compounded by political cycles and short-term planning horizons that discourage the intergenerational thinking required to work meaningfully with both communities and nature. The question remains: can we afford to treat nature as equal, or can we afford not to?

Regenerative opportunity: Adopt intergenerational horizons and systems thinking

To apply regenerative practice principles to partnerships, stakeholder relationships must be fundamentally reimagined. For communities, this means moving from consultation to co-design to ownership: investing time and resources for meaningful involvement that gives residents genuine influence over outcomes. As one roundtable participant put it: “Can you move it from co-design to agency?”

For nature, this means making ecological outcomes non-negotiable components of partnership objectives, designing places that work for people and ecosystems alike.

Achieving this requires longer-term commitments, intergenerational thinking, and flexible budgets that embed stewardship approaches and unlock new investment models. As one participant observed: “For me, this is all about time and how we change the time scales that we are given in briefs for projects that we set in policy cycles. Because if we want regenerative partnerships to lead to regenerative practice, then we need intergenerational horizons that we’re all working to.”

Whilst The Well-being of Future Generations Act in Wales doesn’t explicitly mention regenerative principles, those at the roundtable agreed that it offers an existing policy framework that points to beneficial long-term thinking and integrated decision-making, demonstrating alignment with regenerative goals.

One participant emphasised the need to push further with collective partnership approaches that redistribute power:

“How can place and people be the power that direct regenerative partnerships and practice? When I say people, I mean the people communities as much as I mean people that have the levers of funding and permissions… and how do we make friends around the table? So that that drives us to pick up the phone, to try things differently, to take risk, to keep each other accountable.”

• Jane Abraham, Islington Council
• David Burns, Camden Council
• Fiona Gibson, Opportunity London
• Caroline Harper, Be First
• Declan Higgins, Higgins Group
• Richard James, YMCA ST Paul’s Group
• Lara Kinnierr, UK Policy Lab
• James Masini, Inner Circle Consulting
• Olly Maury, Montagu Evans
• David Meecham, TLT
• Jo Negrini, Arup
• Dermot Whelan, Royal Borough of Greenwich
• Sian Whyte, The Young Foundation
• Dima Zogheib, Arup

Thanks to the project sponsors

Arup | Inner Circle Consulting | Montagu Evans | TLT