Our lands are under threat, down to the very soil. As social media broadcasts this issue from every corner of the globe, many young people are feeling increasing climate anxiety and uncertainty about what the future holds.
Thankfully, it’s not too late, and we aren’t powerless at all. In just one moment of focused effort, we can make a direct impact to help reverse our trajectory—and have fun in the process.
We spoke with Louis De Jaeger, Networking and Regeneration at Ten Lives, about how this movement is flipping the festival script and bringing people together to get their hands dirty and repair the land.
What inspired your co-founders to start a regenerative festival movement and engage in environmental stewardship?
It started with one of our founders learning about the Paani Foundation in India. They run competitions where villages get 40 days to build rainwater harvesting systems. But here’s what really got us: it wasn’t just about the water. Once those systems were in place, everything changed. Water started flowing, plants came back, and people who’d left for the cities came home. The land could sustain them again.
That story stuck with us. We kept thinking: “What if we could do something like that here in Europe, but make it a cultural movement? Combine that regenerative power with the energy of festivals like Burning Man or Tomorrowland and excite people to want to be part of it.”
And honestly, we didn’t have a choice. The science is terrifying: most of the world’s soils could be degraded within decades. We just refused to sit around feeling helpless about it.
How does eco-anxiety influence your approach to festivals and community-building?
There’s this massive Lancet Planetary Health study that surveyed 10,000 young people aged 16–25 across ten countries. Three-quarters of young people think the future is frightening. Every other youngster said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning.
So we thought, what if instead of talking about it, we just let people do something? Come plant trees, build water systems, get your hands dirty. Spend a few days actually shaping the land.
When we test this, we see that the shift is immediate. You see it in people’s faces. They’re covered in mud, they’re exhausted, but they’re watching something real take shape together. Later, we’ll show people drone shots so they can literally see the water being captured, plants settling in, life returning. That’s when it clicks. They realize, “I can actually do this. I’m not powerless.”
When they go home, they will be different. They will have proof that change is possible, that they can be part of it. It’s not the end of the festival; it’s the beginning of something else.
What makes the Ten Lives model different from traditional sustainable or circular festivals?
Most sustainable festivals are trying to be less harmful—we can’t blame them; that’s what we all do. Reduce waste, recycle, offset emissions. Fine, but that’s still playing defence.
We’re asking a different question entirely: what if the festival actually improved the land?
Regenerative means the land is healthier after we leave than before we arrived. Soil gets richer. Biodiversity increases. Water cycles start working again. You’re not just preserving, you’re investing.
Festivals tend to trash the landscape. Fields get compacted, vegetation dies, ecosystems get wrecked. We’re flipping that. The festival becomes the catalyst for restoration, not destruction.
Can you describe a moment when the impact of this movement truly surprised you?
The people, honestly. We kept hearing the same thing over and over: “I’ve wanted to do something like this for years, but there was nowhere to go.” The festival became this space where suddenly people had a role. Volunteers, artists, farmers, former festival crew, all working together to get this project off the ground.
People get to use skills they’d never found a place for before. Or they discovered they had something valuable to contribute that they didn’t even know about. Someone handed them a blank page and said, “Go.”
And then there’s Portugal. Even tiny interventions can change things fast. We built some simple swales to catch rainwater. Within weeks, you could see the difference. Rain stayed in the soil longer.
It hit us: ecosystems are fragile, but they’re also incredibly responsive. You don’t need millions of euros or fancy tech. You need intention—people who give a damn and are ready to roll up their sleeves.
What challenges have you faced in building the Ten Lives regenerative festival movement?
Try coordinating fifty people when you can’t pay anyone! That’s where we are starting, completely bootstrapped, running on fumes and trust. But people are showing up, putting in real work, real time. That’s a heavy responsibility. You can’t just waste that. Every promise becomes a moral contract. We’re worried about burning people out, while some complain we don’t give them enough to do, because “they need this” and “this is hope.”
And logistically? Festivals are already difficult to organize. Permits, safety, infrastructure, crowds—it’s chaos. Now add ecological design, land management, seasonal timing, and monitoring. We’re essentially running two massive, complex systems at once and trying to make them work together.
Plus, people think we’re over our heads. Large-scale collective regeneration? Most assume it’s impossible because it’s barely been tried in Europe. We’re operating without a blueprint, pushing against what everyone—including us, sometimes—believes is realistic.
What are the next steps for the Ten Lives movement?
We crushed our crowdfunding goal. While we needed €30,000, we knew we could aim for a maximum of €10,000. Yet we still ended up with over €23,000. The money wasn’t even the best part. Working through that campaign together, so early in the process, under pressure, with real stakes, it forged the team in a way nothing else could have.
We held Genesis on April 30 – May 3, 2026. About 100 people, music, communal work, restoration—everything a festival should be, but regenerative. We’re planning another festival for May 2027, but even if Genesis’ is the only event we ever pull off, it matters. The cultural impact alone is worth it.
We’re also getting interest from established festivals wanting to integrate regenerative elements into their events. People are changing. They don’t just want to party and forget about the world anymore. They want to contribute. They want their money and time to actually fix something.
What are your hopes for the future of environmentally focused economies in Europe, and why do you advocate for a regenerative economy alongside circularity?
The circular economy is better than the take-make-waste model we’ve been running; it’s keeping things stable. Reusing materials puts a stop to the continual extraction of new resources, which helps prevent environmental harm and reduces emissions. This is a solution to one side of the problem, but we believe we can take things even further, working in tandem to effectively restore and renew.
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better,” said Einstein. Regenerative works like nature; growth creates more abundance, not less. Plant a tree for a few euros today, and in thirty years it’s giving you food, shade, carbon storage, ecosystem services worth thousands of times what you paid. That’s the logic we should apply to everything: agriculture, buildings, clothing, energy, cities.
The festival proves it works. People spend a week seeing their own power to change ecosystems. Not just thinking about it, doing it.
There’s research showing that when even just a small percent of people shift their mindset, the whole culture tips. That’s what we’re building toward: a critical mass of people who see themselves as stewards, not spectators. Regeneration isn’t some fringe idea; it’s joyful, it’s normal, it’s what we do.
And it cuts through the climate anxiety. Fear turns into action. Paralysis turns into participation. We’re not pretending everything’s fine, but we’re also not letting the crisis own our future. We’re showing that restoration is possible, that economies can heal, and that you can have fun while doing it. Let’s turn rage into beauty. Let’s bring back life.
This story was featured in Circular Economy Magazine:
