the research

The bio.t™ METHOD playbook is based on a process Melissa has refined over the years as a regenerative business transformation specialist. Over lock downs she took it one step further.

Melissa went deep into research, analyzing and curating 100 years of Nature’s living-system thinking. She then calibrated this with a disruptive business design lens, and wove the pieces into a framework for re/designing strategy, innovation and business models.

1.

NATURE’S RE/DESIGN THINKING

regenerative Research

Looking back over the last 100 years, across 20+ different schools of thought, Melissa first analysed deep patterns of Nature’s living systems thinking- ecology, biology and social relational ethics. She then weaved in agricultural, soil and permaculture regenerative design principles. Finally she cross-referenced and calibrated with regenerative business, engineering, economic and chemistry principles.

At each step she chased patterns and dissected assumptions, based on the underlying relationships, to pull through value drivers that could be applied to business model innovation, and the strategic transformation process.

1.1 PATTERN ANALYSIS

Theme reoccurrence within and across all thinking schools. What’s same, what’s different. Why?

1.2 RELATIONSHIPS

Interdependencies. Cause and effect. Causal Loops. Hierarchy and scale. Outcome and drivers. INSIGHT | fitness (fittedness) from strength of relationship

1.3 RELATIONAL LENS + DIMENSIONS

Relationship to time, place, self, others, materiality, structural form, process, energy, information. INSIGHT | role of ethics

1.4 FOUR VALUE AXES

Calibrated with a lens of value / value risk / value potential. INSIGHT | not one, but four axes of value, all working together interdependently.

  • Living Systems principles. Living Systems Thinking, Miller 1978. Ecological Succession, Allenby + Cooper 1994. Life’s Biology Patterns, Hoagland 1995. Life’s Principles, Benyus and Baumeister 1997. Living systems Adaptive Cycle, Holling 2002.

    Regenerative land principles. Bio Dynamic Farming, Steiner 1924. Permaculture, Mollison + Holmgren 1978. Regenerative Agriculture Rodale Institute 1980s.

    Regenerative systems. Systems Thinking and levers of systems disruption, Meadows 1980s.

    Regenerative Business and economics. Regenerative business Sanford 1990s, Elkington 1990s, Mackey 2000s. Regenerative business redesign, Reed 2000s, Gunter 2010s, Stuchtey, Enkvist and Zumwinkel 2010s. Regenerative economics Scumacher 1970s, Raworth, Fullerton and Mazzucato 2010s.

    Circular and green business systems. Circular Economy, Stahel 1980s McCarthur 2010s. Cradle to Cradle, Braungart + McDonough 2002. Green Chemistry, Anastas + Warner 1998. Green Engineering, Anastas + Zimmerman 2003.

    —-

    Ethical Principles Nature’s living systems principles were then cross-referenced with ethical principles with respect to relationship - to self and others - (businesses, markets and industries are social systems). Pulling from Eastern philosophy (Hinduism. Taoism. Buddhism. Theosophy) Indigenous philosophies of the Pacific rim (as documented). and then rooted in te ao Māori.

2.

BUSINESS RE/DESIGN THINKING

disruptive transformation

Looking back over the last 50 years, across 15 different schools of thought, Melissa then applied Nature’s regenerative living systems principles to the process of business re/design. She first applied a design thinking lens for business transformation - value potential, lifetime value and net present value. She then pulled the key pieces into systems design thinking principles. Finally she translated this into a methodology that could be followed as a process.

At each of these steps she referenced back to her years as a practitioner as a strategic business transformation specialist, pulling through disruptive re/design examples.

2.1 FILTER + CALIBRATE

Business transformation lens. Business value / chain lens. NPV + LTV lens. INSIGHT | value potential levers

2.2 SYNTHESIZE INTO DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Synthesized into actionable design principles that can be applied to business re/design INSIGHT | not the characteristic of the outcome, but the action

2.3 CORE COMPONENTS OF A METHOD

bio.t™ METHOD sequenced canvas + compass + toolkit (questions + visual models). Beta test with existing + start up clients. INSIGHT | Knowing what NOT to do is big. Knowing HOW to do things is bigger.

  • Design Thinking Human Centered Design Thinking, Kelly brothers 1978. Doblin 10x Types of Innovation 1998. 2xDiamond Design Process, UK Design Council 2005. Business Model canvas Thinking, Osterwalder 2005. Lean Business canvas Maurya 2010.

    Value Thinking Net Present Value Thinking, Fisher 1907. Customer Lifetime Value Thinking, 1980s. Value Chain Thinking, Porter 1985. Lean Thinking, Womak et al 1991.

    Systems Disruption Levers of Systems Disruption, Meadows 1997. Panarchy, Holling 2002. Market Shaping Thinking, Kumar et al 2000. Tech Disruption Framework, Seba 2014. Financial Market Platform Rorts, Bouleau 2018.

    Future Thinking Futures Thinking, Glenn, 1980s on. Theory of U, Scharmer 1997. Causal Layered Analysis, Inayatullah 1998.

3.

synthesize for application - disruption

NATURE’S LEVERS FOR LEVERAGE

Melissa then got really curious about the tension of leverage and the intersection with value potential (her specialty). She wanted to unpack the big gap between how Nature does leverage, versus how leverage is taught within conventional business design thinking.

This prompted her MSc in Biomimicry to explore the biotech science, playing in the intersection of biology, technology and innovation. She ran a continuous filter for application into business transformation orientated to disrupting dysfunctional systems (markets, industries, social systems). Always maintaining the common thread of unlocking value potential. She then curated a library of cutting edge cross-industry biotech (biomaterials, bioprocessing and biomimicry) case studies.

Finally she synthesized everything down into a playbook, for blueprinting into business transformation - strategize, innovate, lead - and named it the bio.t™ METHOD.

3.1 MSc BIOMIMICRY (US)

Deep dive on chemistry, physics and biology of how Nature designs at an individual species level. INSIGHT | Leverage points and levers of disruption 180 degree flip on business thinking. Role of tension.

3.2 CASE STUDY LIBRARY

Curate cutting-edge global biomimicry, living systems-led market disrupting case studies, INSIGHT | Multi-new market multiplier effect.

3.3 SEQUENCE PATHWAY

Final distillation and synthesis into a business re/design playbook. With a sequenced pathway i. for capability build upskilling and ii. as a strategic transformation process.

Also woven into this process is the thinking of other regenerative disruptive pioneers that need attribution.

  • Further thinking and principles

    Donella Meadows (systems + systems disruption), Buckminster Fuller (systems design), Peter Senge (systems), Bill Sharpe (futures + emergence), Tony Seba (systems disruption + tech futurist), Martin Stuchtey, Per-Anders Enkvist and Klaus Zumwinkel (regenerative business disruption), Vandana Shiva (regenerative agri disruption), Nicole Masters (regenerative soil ecologist), Paul Stamets and Merlin Sheldrake (mycologists), Suzanne Simard and Peter Wohlleben (forest ecologists), Rachel Carson, James Lovelock, J. I. Rodale, Bill Mollison and David Suzuki (Nature’s living principles + environmental pioneers)

  • Melanie and Malcolm Rands, permaculture founders of ecostore, who introduced Melissa to regenerative cradle-to-cradle principles and the precautionary principle as lived business practices. And how to harness heart-led intuition to overturn market system rorts by reshaping living systems.

    Alex Snary and the incredible field teams of World Vision, who showed Melissa first hand what regenerative systems-based design looks like on the ground, in the extreme coal face, regenerating remote global communities from the dust of abject vulnerability.

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini. My strength is not mine alone, it rises from the work of many.

why does this matter?

Because as global markets price in the materiality of the living world, there isn’t just huge risk. There’s huge opportunity.

But we need to use a different playbook. And use a different type of design thinking. life centered design. Where we DIAGNOSE . DISCOVER . DESIGN . DEPLOY . differently

the problems we need to solve

  • Business model innovation (BMI), the process of transforming or redesigning a business model is a compounding problem for bio-circular futures; it sits on top of an existing BMI problem. When it comes to transforming any kind of business model, there are a few big elephants in the room:

    ELEPHANT #1 - BMI SUCCESS RATES

    1. 70% of business transformations fail to improve performance over time (McKinsey & Co 2021). 

    2. 88% of transformation innovations fail at achieving their original goal (Bains & Co 2024).

    3. 97% of business leaders are not ready to deliver strategic innovation (Boston Consulting Group 2024).

    4. What’s more, those 30% of businesses that do succeed, still leave 1/3 of their potential value untapped (McKinsey & Co 2022).

    And the 70% that don’t? Most end in various forms of theatre - restructures, hackathons and process rewrites (5). Digital transformations are now estimated to cost global business an un-fathomable $2.3 trillion dollars in wasted time and effort (6).

    ELEPHANT #2 - BMI CAPABILITIES

    Behind these statistics sits a lack of critical thinking capabilities:

    1. McKinsey & Co (2022) identify the #1 root cause as a lack of fact-based clarity when defining strategic goals and purpose (7). In other words, value gets lost in the thinking.

    2. Bains & Co (2024) identify the #1 root cause as a lack of dedicated people with strategic thinking capabilities (8).

    3. World Economic Forum (2025) identify the #1 barrier to business transformation as a leadership skills gap in resilience, adaptive agility, and complex systems thinking (9).  

    ELEPHANT #3 - BMI TOOLS

    And behind these capability gaps sits a lack of thinking and practice tools. Research continues to reveal that, despite the many business model canvases that exist, it’s (i) the process of BMI that is the primary challenge in sensing and transforming value (Foss and Saebi 2017, Pieroni et al 2019), with (ii) a lack of contextual ecosystem framing (Zott et al 2024), and (iii) a gap in synthesizing the required capabilities needed to undertake a BMI process (Buruleaunu et al 2025).

    In short, there’s a big gap. Plugging this gap is where we play.

    We work with you in three, interdependent, ways:

    • Strategic transformation journey,

    • Capability building, and

    • Diagnostic measurement.

    In this way, you’re guided step by step through the BMI process from contextual discovery and sense-making through to strategic decision making through to design of your strategy, innovations and business model. No matter where your starting point is.

    We give you the thinking models, tech tools and practice steps. And we showcase what’s possible.

    WHY WE LOVE THIS GAME

    • Because the rewards for you are in multiples - 1. Multiple new revenue streams, 2. Multiple new market creating, 3. Demand-led B2B and B2C growth, 4. Scalable growth, 5. De-risking, 6.  Lower costs, 7. Capital flows, 8. More profit, and 9.  At the highest order of sustainability.

    • Because it strengthens both your decision making (THINK) and executional performance (DO) - for your ongoing adaptive resilience

    • Because it applies to any business, across any sector, doing strategy or innovation (not just the biotech disruptors). 

    • Because you don’t have to be a biologist, or even a design thinker, to do this. It only requires an entrepreneurial mindset.

    • And because frankly, it’s way more fun. It’s why we call it the bright side.

    ——

    (1) McKinsey & Company. December 2021. Losing from day one: Why even successful transformations fall short. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/successful-transformations

    (2) Bains & Company. April 2024. The Three Common Transformation Talent Mistakes and How to Avoid Them https://www.bain.com/insights/the-three-common-transformation-talent-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them/

    (3) Boston Consulting Group. June 2024. Innovation Systems Need a Reboot. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/innovation-systems-need-a-reboot

    (4) McKinsey & Company. February 2022. The science behind transformations: Protecting value from day one. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-organization-blog/the-science-behind-transformations-protecting-value-from-day-one

    (5) Harkin, B. 2024. $2.3trillion Wasted Globally in Failed Digital Transformation Programs https://newsroom.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/costly-business-overhauls-are-not-needed-to-embrace-new-digital-technologies-according-to-specialist/

    (6) Blank, S. (2019). Why companies do “innovation theater” instead of actual innovation. Harvard Business Review, 7, 2-5. ttps://steveblank.com/category/harvard-business-review/

    (7) McKinsey & Company February 2022. The science behind transformations: Protecting value from day one. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-organization-blog/the-science-behind-transformations-protecting-value-from-day-one

    (8) Boston Consulting Group. June 2024. Innovation Systems Need a Reboot. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/innovation-systems-need-a-reboot

    (9) World Economic Forum 2026. Next Generation Leadership for a World in Transformation: Driving Dialogue and Action https://reports.weforum.org/docs/GFC_White_Paper_on_New_Leadership_Models_for_Future_Generations_2026.pdf

    (10) Foss, N.J. and Saebi, T., 2017. Fifteen years of research on business model innovation: how far have we come, and where should we go?. Journal of management, 43(1), pp.200-227. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316675927

    (11) Pieroni MPP, McAloone TC, Pigosso DCA. 2019. Business model innovation for circular economy and sustainability: A review of approaches, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 215, Pages 198-216, ISSN 0959-6526, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.036.

    (12) Zott, C., Amit, R., Giesen, E. 2024. Business Model Innovation Capability: A Game Changer for Sustaining a Firm’s Edge. In: Aagaard, A. (eds) Business Model Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57511-2_2

    (13) Buruleanu, C. L., Chléirigh, L. N., Bhaird, M. N. a., Curran, T. P., Reinmuth, E., & Bîzoi, M. 2025. Weaving Knowledge, Innovation, and Learning: A Transdisciplinary Pathway to Circular Bioeconomy Through BioBeo. Sustainability, 17(14), 6541. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17146541

  • How you think about value is at the core of BMI, design thinking, and dynamic capabilities. You can think of them like 3 circles in a Venn diagram:

    1. Business model innovation is based on how well you create, deliver, and capture value

    2. Dynamic capabilities are based on how well you sense, seize, and transform value

    3. Design thinking is based on how well you discover and design value

    All three, when done well, identify not just value, but value potential, and value risk.

    THE BIO CIRCULAR CHALLENGE

    The circular bioeconomy adds a topspin to value thinking, because it not only requires a reshaping of consumer behaviours, but a reshaping of incumbent value chains and market ecosystems as well.

    This requires you to push past the definitional boundaries of value that make up the three value pillars of a business model. In practice, it add a whole new dimension to the BMI process:

    1. To see the flow of value, and the value of flow across open networked systems.

    2. To see and transform emergent potential value of biomass waste streams.  

    3. To trade, transact and broker new reciprocal value exchanges in symbiotic win : win relationships, and co-create emergent value, with new business models

    4. To contribute and gift value that enhances the interdependent economic ecosystem as a whole.

    THE NATURE ADVANTAGE

    This requires a way of thinking, an intelligence, that is (i) contextual, (ii) relational and (iii) transformational.

    This is the reason why we look to Nature.

    As beyond-human intelligence that’s not artificial, but evolutionary. With 3.8 billion years of living, adaptive R&D, and hardcoded algorithms resilient enough to underwrite the very foundations of life.

    Right now cutting-edge businesses are re/designing anything from products, services and platforms to business models, value chains and operations - even ways of working as high performing teams.

    They’re transforming themselves, building adaptive resilience, and disrupting the shape of global markets, global industries, and the rules of the global economy.

    WEF estimates biomimicry could create US$10 trillion in GDP growth and 395 million new jobs by 2030 (1).

    We think this undersells it. Research show there is a 88%+ innovation gap between how biology designs and how humans design (Vincent and Mann 2002).

    Our own research shows Nature has evolved clear strategies to work dynamically across business model value axes, that can be cleanly and easily applied to business models, and the process of BMI. In the flow, exchange and transformation of value potential. In the creation, delivery and capture of value. In the sensing, seizing and leveraging of value.

    We see ourselves only at the beginning of our disruptive evolutionary journey. Our bio.t METHOD gives you the levers to unlock yours.

    Life is rich.

    ——-

    ‍ * this analysis of value is based on a literary review of 78 well cited papers in business journals, too exhaustive to list here. Melissa is currently working on a white paper.

    (1) World Economic Forum, July 2020. 395 Million New Jobs by 2030 if Businesses Prioritize Nature.  https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/07/395-million-new-jobs-by-2030-if-businesses-prioritize-nature-says-world-economic-forum/

    (2) Vincent J., Mann, D. 2002. Systematic technology transfer from biology to engineering. Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences. Volume 360, Pages 159-73, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2001.0923

Te Whāriki Kia Mohio Ai Tātao Ki A Tātao

E kore e taea e te whenu kotahi ki te raranga i te whāriki kia mōhio ai tātou ki a tātou.

Mā te mahi tahi o ngā whenu, mā te mahi tahi o ngā kairaranga, ka oti tēnei whāriki.

I te otinga me titiro tātao ki ngā mea pai ka puta mai,

ā tana wā, me titiro hoki ki ngā raranga i makere nā te mea, he kōrero anō kei reira.

— Kukupa Tirikatene, gifted by Cherie Tirikatene

The Tapestry of Understanding

The tapestry of understanding cannot be woven by one strand alone.

Only by the working together of weavers will such a tapestry be completed.

When it is complete, let us look at the good that comes from it,

And in time we should also look at those dropped stitches because they also have a message.

— English translation