*PLAYBOOK + ZINE + WORKSHOP + FIELD TRIP
Fungi as your Futurist.
Imagine we were more like a mushroom? If we are to solve some of humanity’s most radical challenges, we need radical new ways of being. Fungi show us new ways to think about our futures. Sporesight’s Rot + Regeneration toolkit* shares 12 regenerative design principles for innovation, systems, brands and things, inspired by nature’s intelligence.
Fungi as your Futurist Playbook
Fungi as your Futurist is a first-of-its kind playbook for new ways of thinking about radical challenges: in sustainability, innovation, systems, brands and things.
12 fungi-inspired principles that challenge business-as-usual, backed by insights from 16+ global leaders from mycology to foresight and AI ethics. We decode why fungi are systems-thinking masters, show how companies are applying fungal wisdom, then give you tools to spark this in your world. Part manifesto, part toolkit, Fungi as your Futurist is designed to compost what's broken and regenerate what's possible.
Imagine…
Imagine a future where growth means healing, not harming! Regeneration, not extraction. Where business gives back more than it takes, and the economy feeds life instead of chewing it up. A future where we are good ancestors, to humans, our more-than-human kin, and our Earthly home.
Rot + Regeneration
OUR SOLUTION: 12 DESIGN PRINCIPLES for new ways of thinking
DIY Toolkit
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Playbook
A first-of-its kind playbook for new ways of thinking about radical challenges. 12 rot + regeneration principles inspired by fungi + how-to guide.
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Playbook - Accessible version
We’ve done our best to make these tools accessible. Click below to access the playbook via Google Docs.
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Zag edition
Magical zag [zine/mag] edition, beautifully designed for gifting and inspiration. First edition limited to 100 copies and selling fast!
a meditation
Written and voiced by Thays Prado. Sound design by Michael Saal.
Welcome to the Sporesight meditation. Before engaging with this work, you are invited to take 10 minutes or so to connect with the world of fungi, and experiment with how it feels to be a little bit more like a mushroom. Don’t worry, this is an exercise with no substance involved other than your own imagination. Shall we begin?
Work with us
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Rot + Regeneration Session
2 hr Working session with your company or team, to imagine the integration of regenerative principles in your world.
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Field Trip
Full day outdoors in nature. Your in-person immersion into regenerative nature-centric thinking, meeting myco-experts.
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Speedy-Slow Strategy
Solving your specific challenge through a fungi lens. For strategic sustainability, innovation, foresight, design research.
Who is this for?
For imagination…
This work is for anyone who is curious about symbiotic futures! Whether you want to imagine, speculate, design or build innovation, brands or systems which are regenerative, our playbook is designed to inspire fresh, fun(gi) thinking.
…and for impact
Sustainability and CSR Directors ready to shift beyond the status quo. Visionary founders who see business as a force for good. B-Corps and purpose-driven nonprofits. Consultancies in sustainability, foresight, innovation. Innovation teams helping clients transform. Foresight folk inspired by fresh thinking.
Why is this important?
Regeneration, not sustainability
STATUS QUO = GROWTH + SUSTAINABILITY + SHORT-TERMISM + INCREMENTAL CHANGE
Sustainability has come to mean ‘less bad’. It’s not enough to maintain the status quo. 72% of sustainability leaders admit the extent of greenwashing.
Sustainability is struggling partly because we're using dead frameworks to fix living systems.
We can be much more ambitious.
What if we chose a different way of being? Regeneration is a movement shifting from extraction to collaboration. From seeing people and nature as resources to be 'used', to care for our planet, communities and future generations.
Learning from fungi intelligence
TRANSFORMATION = POST-GROWTH + REGENERATION + LONG-TERMISM + TRANSFORMATION
Inspired by Nature's most successful regenerators, we've decoded fungi wisdom into Rot + Regeneration: 12 Design Principles that invite you to be more like a mushroom.
+ ROT: Let go of outdated systems, extractive products, scarcity thinking.
+ REGENERATE: Design new ways of being, circular systems, things that create wealth without waste.
Fungi have so much to teach us. They’ve been transforming dead systems into thriving ecosystems for 400m+ years.
Let’s learn together!
Who’s behind this?
This project, led by Sporesight Founder Jess Jorgensen with support from Grace Palmer, is a multi-disciplinary inquiry with our partners, and our favourite mushrooms.
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![Sporesight founder Jess Jorgensen]()
JESS JORGENSEN
FORESIGHT + FUNGI
Sporesight founder Jess, is a mycophile, nature rights advocate and Board Vice Chair at HODARI Foundation. Formerly Global Insight Lead at two multinational brands and agency Director; now Social Entrepreneur and regenerative design researcher.
🍄🟫 Trametes versicolor (Turkey tail)
📍 South Africa, United Kingdom -
![Sporesight partner profile photo Grace Palmer]()
GRACE PALMER
SCIENTIFIC WRITING + FUTURES
Grace is a Biotech graduate, science and adrenaline enthusiast happiest in water, forests, doing DIY, writing or researching. Governed by the mantra mostly happy, mostly healthy, mostly going in the right direction.
🍄🟫 Psathyrella aquatica (fruits underwater!)
📍 Spain, United Kingdom -
![Sporesight partner Alice Jasmine Crippa]()
ALICE JASMINE CRIPPA
EXPERIENCE DESIGN
Alice, of Bogiaisso APS & Differ Studio, is an experience designer specialising in embodied, participative innovation, solving problems by building prototypes and exploring scenarios with both bodies and minds.
🍄🟫 Pleurotus ostreatus (Oyster mushroom)
📍 Italy -
![Sporesight partner Andrew Allright]()
ANDREW ALLRIGHT
MY/CƎLIUM HUB
Andrew, partner at MY/CƎLIUM Hub, empowers people through ethical leadership and growth. A seasoned financial leader, he was CEO of a hedge fund startup. He now chairs Mondo Foundation, supporting education and livelihoods.
🍄🟫 Cordyceps militaris
📍 United Kingdom -
![Ben Randall, Firetail]()
BEN RANDALL
FORESIGHT | FIRETAIL
Ben is a Director at Firetail, with expertise in strategy, operating models, and futures thinking. He’s delivered futures training for UK Government, and strategy + impact projects for social progress clients.
🍄🟫 Grifola frondosa (Hen of the woods)
📍 United Kingdom -
![Sporesight partner profile photo of Conner Eastwood]()
CONNER EASTWOOD
FUTURES IMAGINING
Conner is the Founder and Creative Director of StudioCone, an experimental design studio helping create conscious and equitable futures, through radical imagination and immersive interventions at the intersect of society, technology and ecology.
🍄🟫 Psilocybe cyanescens
📍 United Kingdom -
![Sporesight partner Cullen Taylor Clark, Aether Apothecary and The Lost Muti]()
CULLEN TAYLOR CLARK
THE LOST MUTI | AETHER APOTHECARY
Cullen, a published researcher affiliated with Free State and Stellenbosch University, is co-founder of bioceutical pioneer Aether Apothecary. He’s an author, speaker and creator of The Lost Muti project — capturing Southern Africa’s untold fungi story.
🍄🟫 Reishi (locally known as Isibindi)
📍 South Africa -
![Sporesight partner Elizabeth Hofvenschiöld]()
ELIZABETH HOFVENSCHIÖLD
AI & ETHICS
Elizabeth teaches business & AI ethics, futures thinking + strategy at ESB. She researches responsible AI with a co-creative twist, shaping ethical tech future narratives. She’s a forest explorer & fungi philosopher.
🍄🟫 Pleurotus ostreatus (Oyster mushroom)
📍 Germany -
![Sporesight partner Janvier Hafasha]()
JANVIER HAFASHA
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE
Janvier is the Executive Director of HODARI Foundation, a refugee-led nonprofit. Drawing from lived experience in displaced life, he builds refugee resilience via regenerative mushroom farming and permaculture.
🍄🟫 Pleurotus ostreatus (Oyster mushroom)
📍 Uganda -
![Sporesight partner Jorge de la Mora]()
JORGE DE LA MORA
DESIGN | FUTURES
Jorge is a multidisciplinary designer specialising in strategic foresight, emergent tech, industrial design and speculative mobility. They explore AI, immersive tools and systems thinking to imagine ethical, planet-centered futures.
🍄🟫 Prototaxites stellaviatori (fictional; USS Discovery, Star Trek)
📍 Spain, Mexico -
![Sporesight partner Jasper Tahany of The Regenscape]()
JASPER TAHANY
REGENERATIVE DESIGN THINKING
Jasper, co-founder of The Regenescape community, is immersed in regenerative design thinking, pro-social technology and social entrepreneurship. He explores collective human-nature-tech intelligence to solve societal problems.
🍄🟫 Hericeum erinaceus (Lion’s mane)
📍 United Kingdom -
![Sporesight founder Julia Oliansky]()
JULIA OLIANSKY
ORGANISM THINKING
Julia, author of The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing, is founder of The Forest Bathing Club and placebased.org, co-founder of Organism Thinking, a brand strategist and nature connection guide. Julia has a BA from Dartmouth College and an MFA from The School of Visual Arts.
🍄🟫 Ganoderma lucidum (Reishi)
📍 United States -
![Sporesight partner Michael Kibedi]()
MICHAEL KIBEDI
DESIGN RESEARCH
Michael Kibedi, FRSA, is a design researcher, writer, and speaker. His newsletter, First & Fifteenth, features his essays on human-computer interaction, data justice, and ecology told through the interpretative lens of Black studies and conceptual art.
🍄🟫 Phallus indusiatus (Veiled lady)
📍 United Kingdom -
![Sporesight partner Oli Genn-Bash]()
OLI GENN-BASH
FUNGI CONSULTANT
Oli, founder at The Fungi Consultant, is a mycology educator and consultant exploring the intersection of functional mushrooms, systems thinking, and wellbeing—bridging science, tradition, and fungal wisdom to support personal and planetary health.
🍄🟫 Cordyceps militaris
📍 United Kingdom -
![Sporesight partner Renee Davis]()
RENEE DAVIS
MYCOLOGY | ENGINEER
Renee is a mycologist-engineer. Formerly R&D Director at Fungi Perfecti, she’s a doctoral researcher at the University of Washington, active in the fungal biotech startup ecosystem and passionate about applying fungi to regenerative systems, innovation, and design.
🍄🟫 Dacrymyces palmatus (Orange jelly fungus)
📍 United States -
![Sporesight partner Samantha Koches]()
SAMANTHA KOCHES
REGENERATIVE BUSINESS
Samantha is the Founder and Executive Director of nonprofit Nourish All, building livelihoods and food security with vulnerable communities. Formerly, she consulted in strategy for Feeding America and Bain & Company, as well as regenerative land management for Systemiq.
🍄🟫 Pleurotus ostreatus (Oyster mushroom)
📍 USA, Uganda, Kenya -
![Oh-so deliciously sexy, spicy, and sacred. Black and white portrait of Sulaiman by the legendary photographer Rankin.]()
SULAIMAN R. KHAN
ANTI-ABLEISM
Sulaiman is a Global Majority spicy Disabled AF oracle. As the Founder of ThisAbility® Limited, his life goal is designing radical ecosystems of curiosity and care, access Intimacy for collective liberation, and acts of daily Revolutionary LOVE®.
🍄🟫 Geastrum triplex (Earthstar)
📍 United Kingdom -
![Sporesight partner Thays Prado]()
THAYS PRADO
FUTURES
Thays, Feminist Futures founder, storyteller and gender expert, works with global social impact organisations to co-create regenerative, gender-just futures through foresight and storytelling. Thays uses foresight and speculative stories as tools for systemic transformation.
🍄🟫 Lentinula edodes (Shiitake)
📍 Portugal
Contact Founder Jess, to present Fungi as your Futurist at your organisation.
Book a Rot + Regeneration session
2 hr Working session with your company or team. First, we introduce regenerative design thinking. Then, we imagine how fungi principles can impact your world. We leave you with actionable next steps to decompose what's keeping you stuck and concrete tools to regenerate.
The best way to embody Rot + Regeneration is to spend a day with us in the field
Book a Field Trip with us: a day outdoors in nature, meeting mushrooms in the woods and experts in the field. Your in-person immersion into regenerative nature-centric thinking, with a deep workshop to integrate fungi principles in your world. Available in UK and EU. Coming soon to South Africa, East Africa and more.
Try before you buy
FAQs
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Fungi as your Futurist is a toolkit inviting you to imagine and design regenerative futures, inspired by nature’s intelligence.
What you get…
Not another trend report.
Why this matters now, for humans and our more-than-human kin.
The Intelligence
Deep dive into regenerative design through nature's lens.
Insights from 16+ cross-disciplinary thinkers: mycologists to AI ethicists, ecofeminists to engineers, foresight strategists to designers.
The Principles
12 Regenerative Design Principles: nature's blueprints for thriving systems.
Case studies of real companies already applying fungal thinking, showing what’s possible.
Your World
Exercises to explore your relationship with nature, futures, and fungi.
Practical tools for implementing fungal thinking in your work.
Take Action
Running a Rot + Regeneration session outline for an organisation.
Beyond imagination, we pose prompts to real impact and systemic change.
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The Fungi Principles emerged from Sporesight’s world mushroom tour, exploring how fungi are impacting our futures.
WORLD MUSHROOM TOUR
Since 2021, we’ve connected with 80+ pioneers (and counting!) in fungi innovation, mycology and mushroom culture; online and in-person across UK, Africa, Europe, Asia, and beyond.
Like mycelium, the journey was nonlinear: strange turns, sudden insight. Fungi became a guide, teacher, accomplice.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Fungi x Futures Depth interviews: Conversations with n=13 multi-disciplinary professionals, exploring fungi principles, use cases and real-world applications [Mar-May2025]
Fungi x Futures Online Qual: 15 min online tasks via Field Notes platform, exploring perception of fungi, foresight, futures, with n=11 professionals working in senior positions in brand marketing, strategic foresight, consumer insight, research, innovation.
Mushroom Curious Depth Interviews: 90 min conversations exploring perceptions of mushrooms, fungi, functional mushroom products, with n=6 British mushroom-curious consumers.
A core group of collaborators helped shape the final thinking, reviewing and feeding back on the near-final draft.
GEOGRAPHIES COVERED:
In-person - Kenya, The Netherlands, South Africa, Thailand, UK, Uganda, Vietnam
Online - All of the above plus Canada, Chile, Germany, India, Italy, Namibia, Nigeria, Nomadic, Spain, Sweden, USA
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This project reimagines design, innovation and systems through nature’s lens.
Imagine shifting from extractive to regenerative ways of being! It sparks imagination and collective action for humans, Earth, and our more-than-human neighbours.
We share 12 regenerative design principles: ways to rethink how we design, innovate, and interact with our world. They’re playful, flexible, and for everyone, whether applied to products, systems, or simply enjoyed.
Through stories, case studies, and fungi metaphors, we explore how working with nature as a stakeholder helps us co-create symbiotic futures. We ask: why fungi? why regenerative design? why now?
And, how can we work with nature metaphors in a not-cringe way?
Lastly, we invite you to be more like a mushroom: let rot what no longer serves, and regenerate.
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We’re constantly learning and developing, and acknowledge that this is an evolving work-in-progress.
We’d be so grateful for any feedback, thoughts, tips on how to evolve or improve this work. Or, reach out if you’re doing something similar — let’s collaborate! Email us at hello@sporesight.co
GROWING FOR GOOD, NOT GREED