UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH · ACADEMIC PARTNER
Co-Design for a Regenerative Brecks
Project update
Research Project Lead: Dr Wenjie Cai
Research Team: Dr Isabella Ye; Dr Nikki MacLeod; Dr Hai Nguyen
PROJECT AIM
Developing the Brecks Regenerative Tourism Framework
A stakeholder-led, co-designed initiative to build a practical, measurable, and place-specific regenerative tourism framework for the Brecks National Character Area.
Co-Designed with Partners
Stakeholder-led, place-rooted, and measurable — built with and for the communities who know and love this landscape.
Planned Outputs
A practical regenerative tourism framework, a replicable methodological guide, and peer-reviewed research publications.
Research Design & Process
Early Adopters across the Brecks
Estates & Land-based Anchors
Euston Estate
Elveden Estate
Westacre Estate
Wendling Beck
Forest, Wildlife & Conservation
Thetford Forest
Suffolk Wildlife Trust
Heritage, Culture & Storytelling
West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village
The Food Museum
Oxburgh Estate, National Trust
Local Food, Drink & Producers
Wyken Vineyards
The English Distillery
Thetford Garden Centre
Outdoor, Wellbeing & Community Experience
West Lexham
Bush Adventure
Baseline Survey
A structured survey instrument designed to capture the existing knowledge, practices, and attitudes of Brecks tourism stakeholders — establishing the evidence baseline for the entire project.
01
The Organisation
Type, scale, mission, and relationship to the Brecks landscape.
02
Regenerative Tourism & Expectations
Awareness, aspiration, and current understanding of regenerative principles.
03
Sustainable & Regenerative Practices
What organisations are already doing — formally or informally.
04
The Barriers
Structural, financial, and knowledge barriers to deeper regenerative action.
CO-DESIGN
Stakeholder Insights Through Co-Design Workshops
Co-design produces knowledge through collaborative making — bringing tacit, place-based, and experiential knowledge into the design process itself.
Workshop 1
Surface Meaning, Value & Identity
12 organisations; 4 hours
Artefact, metaphor-based design to establish Brecks identity and non-negotiable values
Workshop 2
Pathway, Prototype & Pledge
17 Organisations, 4 hours
Bespoke Brecks Design Game, Shared Pledge — participants prototype pathways and make pledges to regenerative practice.
Participants are co-researchers, not informants.
TECHNIQUES
Co-Design Techniques Used in the Workshops
Each technique was chosen to unlock different registers of knowledge — sensory, relational, imaginative, and playful — creating a rich, multi-layered dataset. (Nielsen & Liburd, 2025)
Metaphorical & Relational Thinking
Individual and collective non-negotiable, living values and place identity.
Artefact Elicitation
unlock memory, meaning, and place attachment through tactile engagement, create a shared place vocabulary.
Bridge-Building: From Me to We
Facilitate mindset shift, collaborations, and practical actions.
Bespoke Design Game
Regional DNA, Emerging trends, Regenerative Principles and visitor needs.
Data & Analysis
The co-design workshops generate a rich, multi-modal dataset — capturing not just what stakeholders say, but how they think, feel, and relate to the Brecks.
Recorded discussions, observation notes, individual letters, worksheets produced, photographs and short video recordings.
Ongoing Analysis
Analysis is iterative and ongoing — findings from Phases 1 and 2 are continuously refined as new evidence layers are added.
Deep-Dive Interviews
From Broad Mapping to Grounded Understanding
13 key stakeholders
On-Site Visit
Seeing regeneration in place.
Observe the relationship between the organisation, landscape, infrastructure, visitor flow, ecology and heritage.
Walk-Along Conversation
Understanding practice as it happens.
Discuss practices while moving through the site — capturing tacit knowledge, visible and invisible care work, visitor touchpoints, interpretation and place stories.
Sit-Down Interview
Reflecting on values, constraints and pathways.
Explore ethos, motivations, decision-making, trade-offs, barriers, partnerships, future ambitions and support needs.
Together, these methods generate grounded case studies that refine the Brecks Regenerative Tourism Framework, reveal practical pathways for businesses, and provide evidence for future toolkits, training, pledges and destination storytelling.
Adding the Visitor Voice
Who are we researching?
Existing / current Brecks visitors
- Explore what they value, how they experience the landscape, and their interest in regenerative offers
Potential visitors
- Explore awareness, appeal, motivations, barriers, and what kinds of messages or products might attract them
What will the survey and interviews explore?
Teasers of Our Analysis
01 · BASELINE FINDINGS
Baseline Survey: Key Findings
Survey Period
Conducted February to March 2026 · 35 valid responses · 39% response rate
Who Responded
Mostly family-owned businesses (40.4%), charities (14.3%), SMEs (11.4%), and local authorities (11.4%) — predominantly micro and small enterprises (91.4%) deeply embedded in the local landscape.
Regenerative Values
Regenerative tourism is widely perceived as a core value (72.7%) — but more than half of respondents have no formal policy, relying instead on informal, values-led actions.
Most Common Practices
with more than 80% of businesses adopted
Sustainability is a core part of our business (94.1%)
Honest marketing and avoidance of greenwashing (91.2%)
Encourage visitors to be responsible guests and stewards (88.2%)
Marketing focuses on care for place and community (87.9%)
Support local enterprises, cooperatives, and social businesses (84.8%)
Design transformative experiences for visitors and hosts (84.8%)
Clearly explain how the business contributes to the Brecks (81.8%)
Initiatives support long-term community wellbeing (81.8%)
Use green energy or energy-efficient approaches (80%)
Least Common Practices
with less than a third of businesses adopted
Employee surveys on environmental and social issues (12.1%)
Regenerative tourism policy or action plan (17.6%)
Third-party sustainability certification (achieved or in progress) (24.2%)
Commitment to a carbon reduction programme or target (31.4%)
Themes from stakeholders’ letters and discussions
Stewardship
The Brecks is seen not as a passive asset, but a living landscape requiring ongoing care, restraint, and collective custodianship.
Future & Succession
Strong concern for long-term continuity; protecting biodiversity, dark skies, and landscape character, ensuring future custodians.
Connection & Storytelling
Helping visitors understand hidden care work, local histories, and ecological value is key to fostering thoughtful participation.
Change & Fragility
Change is unavoidable. Distinguishing regenerative from damaging change is critical amid development pressures and countryside loss.
The Brecks is understood as a fragile, layered, working landscape that demands not just promotion, but an enabling ecology of stewardship, interdependence, and long-term care.
Non-Negotiables: What the Brecks Must Not Trade Away
Ecological Integrity First
Biodiversity, wildlife, habitats, wild and unspoiled spaces must never be traded away.
Human & Nature Intertwined
The Brecks is a co-produced, working landscape shaped by farming, forestry, history, and ecology.
Tourism in Balance
Visitor growth must be carefully managed through education, stewardship, and restraint.
Heritage & Storytelling
Flint, ancient history, local memory, and vernacular identity are part of what must be protected.
Access & Inclusion
The Brecks should stay affordable, welcoming, and meaningfully accessible to different people.
Authentic, Community-Led
No greenwashing, no imposed scripts, no hollow branding; local communities must shape regeneration.
Future Generations
Stewardship must support long-term viability, continuity, and custodianship across generations.
What the Artefacts Reveal About the Brecks
a landscape of quiet gifts, underlying tensions, and unrealised potential. It's not an empty rural backdrop, but a place shaped by subtle beauty, layered history, and human-nature entanglement, holding fragile forms of value often overlooked.
The Brecks as a Gift
A landscape of subtle abundance, distinctive character, hidden histories, and undervalued ecological and cultural richness.
The Brecks as a Tension
Its special qualities – fragility, invisibility, and under-recognition – make it vulnerable to careless tourism or simplified narratives.
The Brecks as a Key
Its unique textures, stories, and living landscape could unlock a regenerative tourism model based on learning, reciprocity, and stewardship.
The Brecks should not be developed as a place to simply consume, but as a place to encounter, understand, and care for.
Vision 2036: What would net-positive success look like?
Better collaboration & mutual awareness
Success means making existing regenerative practices visible, connected, and shareable, fostering deeper understanding and joint action.
Businesses in tune with landscape & community
Local farm shops become inclusive social hubs, shifting the focus from sterile retail to community-facing infrastructure shaped by place.
Joined-up visitor journeys & experiential trails
Formal links between businesses and sites create connected circuits of hands-on experience and participation, encouraging exploration.
Stronger external identity for the Brecks
The Brecks becomes imaginatively legible and conceptually distinct, fostering a recognizable place identity beyond mere geography.
A Compass for Regenerative Tourism
Participants envision a future where tourism actively contributes to the Brecks, guided by what they wish to protect, restore, create, and change.
Protect
Our quiet green spaces, rich biodiversity, unique heritage, and the slower pace of life that defines our community identity.
Restore
Revive local food demand, soil health, traditional crafts, stories from our past, and a deep connection to our land and waterways.
Create
Hands-on natural experiences, connected itineraries, interactive educational workshops, and a strong, unified regional identity.
Change
The transactional, profit-only mindset of tourism, promoting shared value over individual gain and celebrating authentic experiences.
Our guiding principle is to foster community, collaboration, and positive social impact while encouraging visitors to interact with the environment responsibly and mindfully.
DISSEMINATION SO FAR
Dissemination
The Association for Tourism in Higher Education Southern Tourism Academic Network (STAN) Inaugural Workshop, April
Evidence Submitted to the Parliament’s CMS Committee –
‘tourism inquires’, May
International Adventure Tourism Conference, June
Association for Tourism and Leisure Education and Research (ATLAS) Conference, June
UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH · CO-DESIGN RESEARCH TEAM
Thank You
Co-Design for a Regenerative Brecks · Project update
We are grateful to every stakeholder, landowner, community member, and business who has given their time, knowledge, and care to this project. The framework designs with, and for the Brecks.
Dr Wenjie Cai ; Associate Professor in Tourism; w.cai@greenwich.ac.uk