The Pathway forward
-
The ‘natural capital’ bubble is 3x larger than the CO2 bubble (Stuchtey et al 2016).
Half of global business GDP, US$44 trillion, relies on Nature (World Economic Forum 2020).
Nature erosion is ranked by global business leaders as the 10 year Top Four global risks (WEF 2024).
190 countries have signed up to global biodiversity framework, committing governments, large companies and financial institutions to Nature-risk disclosures and action plans (COP15 2022).
WHY THIS MATTERS
The disruptive impact on balance sheets, and P&Ls is not downstream. It's onstreaming.
Global markets are now rapidly pricing in the material costs of Nature and the living world.
THE RISK
If we have a 20th century business model or mindset, this will negatively effect our i. demand-led growth potential, ii. access to markets, iii. access to capital, iv. regulatory compliance, v. supply costs, and vi. our brand risk.
THE MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY
But if businesses pivot to Nature-positive business models, it could create US$10 trillion in GDP growth and 395 million new jobs by 2030 (WEF).
There are businesses right now all round the world who aren't waiting for science based target frameworks for action. They're already on the transformational pathway. What's cool, is that they're not just winning, they're overturning the shape of global markets, and disrupting the rules of the global economy .
If we rapidly connect our strategy, innovation and tech to the science of life, we can disrupt and win.
Or as Simon Sinek said in the Infinite Game “There's no such thing as winning or losing; only ahead and behind” .
-
Nature-positive sits alongside Climate. You don't just consider carbon emissions, but actively protect biodiversity, soil, water, land use, nutrient flows etc. as well.
But this is not only about reducing your footprint. It creates a positive, regenerative effect on the living systems your business operates within, and depends upon. You aim to create conditions for life to flourish.
Strategy, innovation and business models need to connect with the science of living systems. They need to emulate how Nature designs.
When we stop using human-centered design thinking, and start using life-centered design thinking, we open the door to play a big game.
Our research shows there are not one but FOUR design axes of value to consider.
Each one helps you see, unlock and leverage the deep patterns of how Nature works, that you can directly apply to the development of your strategy, innovation and business model:
Transforming to cleaner, more renewable, non-toxic solutions (ECOLOGY)
Shifting to more ethical, equitable, dignified and autonomous solutions for people, communities, and other species (ETHICS)
Shifting to more circular systems that keep materials, energy and information in flow (SYSTEMS)
Transforming to unlock our full bio-potential, tapping into the genius of Nature’s R&D biotech toolkit (BIOMIMCRY)
(This last one is really cool.)
-
We can go ONE STEP FURTHER than just protect Nature. We can learn from Nature.
This open up massive market-disrupting opportunities.
There is a 88%+ INNOVATION GAP between how biology designs and how humans design (Vincent and Mann 2011).
Nature’s playbook is high value, high performance, high growth. Tried, tested and proven for the last 3.8 billion years. And it's open source R&D biotech genius, we can plug and play.
When we discard the old business customer-centered playbook that enforces low value, high risk leverage points, and instead use Nature's playbook, we open up massive innovation potential. And we play at the highest order of sustainability.
Right now bleeding edge businesses around the world are leveraging Nature’s genius. And they're reaping the rewards.
Multi-revenue stream creating.
Demand-led B2B and B2C growth.
Scalable.
De-risked.
Lower costs
More profitable.
What we really love is that in Nature's playbook, leverage is abundant. Not in some Pollyanna world view kind of way, but as a deep design principle. And it’s way more fun!
Not just Nature-positive, but Nature-played.
The only barrier to overcome is how we sense, seize, and scale value potential.
Playing a Nature-positive game doesn’t just mean bolt-on biodiversity projects, or governance reporting. It means playing a different strategy and innovation game.
There’s a clear pathway to level up.
-
Yes! You might not be making goods to sell, but you'll be influencing the flow of energy, materials, information or money.
Nature has deep functioning principles that equally apply to you. Not just to better contribute to your world as a regenerative business, but to radically improve the effectiveness and efficiency in how your business runs.
For example in tech, AI / Cloud offerings are built on miles of fiber optic cables and internet infrastructure, with multiple data storage on hard disks, creating a lot of heat, and needing massive energy-consuming air conditioners.
Disruptive
Design
0.1
Most of us are taught to play here. This is the game where human centered design has been reduced to customer centered design, product-market fit and being “faster, cheaper, newer”.
Our enemy is the competition. Our weapons of choice are disruptive digi-tech. Our battle strategy is agile, and we pivot and pirouette with this year’s new, bright and shiny, digi-tech toy. We obsess over customer experience “pain-points” and cybersecurity. Our currency of value is binary bits.
The solution to everything orbits around large language tools, and we gamify and offset all the annoying Life bits.
Let’s call this a “Faster, cheaper, newer” game.
Designing for a better customer experience. Disrupting the competition. Our lens on Life is risk reporting, compliance, and brand ESG management. The net result is material and energy entropy.
Disruptive
Design
1.0
This is the game of circular design, and some awesome businesses are playing here. Our enemy is still the competition, but we might be forming a few cooperative relationships with other market players.
It can feel like a big step up. As the father of lean, James Womak said, “it’s hard for most managers to even see the flow of value and, therefore, to grasp the value of flow”.
It requires a SYSTEMS lens. But those of us playing ‘cradle-to-cradle’ are reaping cost efficiency benefits from plugging gaps in our material flows. And it feels good. Our customers like us a bit more. And our compliance manager is no longer on our back.
Let’s call this a Nature Circular game.
Designing for a better supply chain model. Disrupting to “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. Our lens on life is cost efficiencies. We innovate for material and energy flows.
LEVEL UP | Place-based biomes. Industrial |agricultural symbiosis. Energy and water cycling. EXAMPLES | British Sugar, Kalundborg Denmark symbiosis, Montfort Boystown Fiji symbiosis, Kwinana Australia symbiosis.
Disruptive
Design
2.0
This is the first Nature-positive game we can play. Global markets are hungry for businesses who play here. There is no enemy in this game, and the gravitational pull of strategy and innovation is to play at the bleeding edge of biomaterials.
To play this game we need an ECOLOGY lens. To consider other living systems beyond climate - like nutrient flows, water, soil, and biodiversity. And those of us who are investing in the likes of plant cellulose, fungi, chitin are winning. It feels amazing. Our customers friggin love us. And others look to us as leaders.
“I know it sounds crazy, but every time I have made a decision that is best for the planet, I have made money.” - Yvon Chouinard, founder Patagonia
Let’s call this a Nature Resourced game.
Designing for a better Impact model. Disrupting industry material models. Our lens on life is planetary boundaries and wider ecologies. We innovate with biomaterial properties.
LEVEL UP | Selecting for abundant feedstock. Playing as ecosystem architects. EXAMPLES | Ecostore, Allbirds, Ethique, Biohm and Shiru.
Disruptive
Design
3.0
Now we focus on how things are made. A few pioneering businesses are playing in this space and global markets are chasing them.
We overturn archaic high energy, high chemical “heat-beat-treat” manufacturing practices, and start playing in bioprocessing, biorefining and bio-fermentation. While others are obsessing of social media platforms, we’re building protein platforms. And it feels incredible! People are writing about us. It’s radical redesign.
And here’s the thing. When we bio-refine or bio-ferment, our business model shifts to being place-based, decentralized, and self-organizing. Which massively reduces our supply chain risk exposure, and our energy and material footprint.
We work in partnership with Nature’s organisms, who can do things way better than us. But to do this, we need to honor the rights and ‘personhood’ of our wildlife partners. We need an ETHICS lens. After all, killing off our co-partners (as a ‘resource’), doesn’t make commercial sense. We lean into indigenous wisdom to shift from a Nature-extractive mindset.
Let’s call this a Nature Processed game
Designing for a better business model. Disrupting industry manufacturing models. Our lens on Life is with respect and agency. We innovate with biological atoms, and partner with bio-organisms.
LEVEL UP | Place-based. Decentralized. Self organizing. Scale up networked models. EXAMPLES | Mint, I-Phyc, String Bio, and Mycocycle.
Disruptive
Design
3.8
Right now, a burgeoning movement is building in the game of Biomimicry. This is what Melissa has been doing her MSc in.
Nature’s organisms are no longer dead resources to use, or domesticated assistants in manufacturing. Nature is respected as a powerhouse innovation library of 30m+ species with tried, tested, and proven R&D we can copy for superior product performance, business efficiency and scale. Giving us the blueprints, the hardcoding and the working models. Open-source IP. Plug and play.
Biomimicry is the bridging tool to apply Nature’s genius to solving how we design products, services, platforms, processes, and business models. We can even apply it to social innovation.
It’s not digi-tech, it’s deep tech. Nanotech. Biotech. It’s innovation built not off binary bits, but biological atoms. It’s unpacking and applying the biology, chemistry and physics genius of Nature.
This is the game any business, from anywhere, can play. We not only play at the highest level of sustainability, we unlock the door to the biggest disruption game there is. It’s truly pioneering. And it feels abundant - because it is. Like hope in a bowl for breakfast. Like how life was designed to work.
“Work with life centered principles & the universe pitches in to help.” - Buckminster Fuller
Let’s call this Nature Leveraged Design
Designing for better futures. Disrupting global business models. Our lens on Life is deference and learning. We innovate by emulating Nature’s genius, hidden in plain sight.
EXAMPLES | Encycle SwarmLogic, Biome Renewables, Humble Bee Bio, Seprify, Nanomik Bio-tech and Strong by Form.
Let’s play that back
from human-centered design to life-leveraged design
Why does this matter?
Because as global markets price in the materiality of the living world, the game rules for business disruption are overturning. If you’re sitting on a 20th century business model or mindset, you’re exposed to massive risk. But if you play a Nature-positive game there is massive disruptive opportunity.
every step up is amazing!
-
The #1 barrier* stopping us play the big game is our ability to sense, seize, and scale value potential (called our ‘dynamic capabilities’).
Life-centered design is a 180° flip on human-centered design thinking. It requires a different lens, different logic, and different leverage points.
Our BQ Diagnostic helps you work out where your leadership capability and organizational practice is currently at.
But as a quick-fire rule of thumb, the more times you answer YES to the following 7 questions, the more exposed to risk you are:
Your approach to INNOVATION is "faster, better, newer".
Your approach to STRATEGY is chasing unfair competitive advantage.
Your approach to ADAPTATION is Agile and product-market fit.
Your approach to TRANSFORMATION is digitization.
Your approach to FUTURE TECH thinking is automation.
Your approach to NATURE is footprint reduction, compliance disclosures, carbon calculations, BCorp creds, SDG or ESG tick boxes.
Your BUSINESS MODEL depends on zero-sum leverage points (e.g. extraction, exploitation, data scraping, restricted access, price arbitrage).
