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For many islands, the answer to the question “why a locally, self-sustaining, and regenerative economy is needed?” is clear. The struggle often lies in the “how”. Here, we argue that tools from regenerative economics, which follow an island economy-as-an-organism analogy, offer valuable and complementary insights to socio-metabolic research. Indicators from flow-based and information-based ecological network analysis can quantify properties of an island's socio-economic metabolism (SEM) which are related to cycling, resilience, and degree of mutualism, among others. To illustrate the applicability of these methods, we select Samothraki in Greece as a case study. Results show that over the years the island became very efficient in streamlining imported resources, experiencing physical growth as indicated by a substantial increase in its total material throughput. This growth was attributed to a high degree of order (i.e., network efficiency) endowed by the constraining (ordered) part of the linear structure of the island's SEM. The disordered part of its SEM which is related to resilience, played a much smaller role which became progressively more important over the years, albeit to a limited degree. While the island exhibits an increasing trend in its robustness, its value over the years studied was well below what is typically observed for healthy natural ecosystems, and its current SEM has a very low ability to generate internal flow activity and cycling of resources per unit input. This limited robustness is due to the island's dependency on imports but also due to its linear SEM which had a very small number of feedback loops in its network. A scenario analysis showed that a reticulated network structure would theoretically endow the island with increased resilience, and hence robustness, by allowing for more internal resource flow activity to be circulated as regenerative re-investment. This article highlights that methods from regenerative economics can be, Integral Design & Management

The first step for transforming the current linear and degenerative socio-economic systems into ones that are circular and regenerative is to understand how they grow and develop. Here, we explore whether there are limits to robustness of a socio-economic system as the result of a linear metabolic structure, and how those limits could theoretically be affected by its transition to a circular economy. First, we study how the circular use of materials and the economic openness of the EU27 would affect the value of its circularity rate (as defined by Eurostat), theoretically. Then, given that the circularity rate does not capture regenerative aspects, we develop a conceptual framework based on regenerative economics and on indicators from ascendency analysis and ecological network analysis. We use this framework to assess a theoretical future case where the EU27 manages to successfully transition to a CE within its given linear material flow metabolism. The results show that there are limits to robustness, and which do not necessarily correspond to a maximum circularity rate. None of the 45 scenarios assessed can theoretically lead to the maximum robustness observed in natural ecosystems, including those which maximize the circularity rate. Interestingly, the highest possible robustness value is obtained at a circularity rate of about 33% as a combination of a material recovery rate of 30% and of a material export rate of 10%. Scenarios of higher circularity rate (as the result of higher export rates and/or higher material recovery rates) seem to lead to brittle networks. Other indicators from regenerative economics are also discussed. Furthermore, the results show that even if substantial steps are taken by the EU27 towards a circular economy, 100% circu- larity rate seems to be unlikely. This analysis highlights that the use of tools from regenerative economics can assist policy makers and researchers to account for and to monitor network properties such as those of