Why should the Next Economy go beyond Circles? — Part 2
Discerning our level of effect as businesses in reshaping the economy
The Circular Economy proposes that we need to think systemically: “Think in ‘systems.’ The ability to understand how parts influence one another within a whole, and the relationship of the whole to the parts, is crucial. Elements are considered in their relationship with their infrastructure, environment, and social contexts.”
The Doughnut Economic Model also intends for societies to reshape their way of working and living based on the limits and boundaries of social justice and ecological systems.
Examining these systemic approaches further, we can ask: are they fixed or dynamic? As fixed structures, they could be outside us or around us, and they should be understood and maintained until they cease to exist. If we see them as integrated elements, there could be multiple systems that come together or should work together in an integrated way. When we develop our capabilities as humans to see systems as complete living entities, they become whole and dynamically alive versus the sums of parts.
Now, let’s make a stop here… Bring to your mind a design activity or production activity on which you’re currently working and notice:
- What is your current view of the world from which your way of working is sourced?
- How do you see yourself as part of and contributing to a bigger system?
It is very different to think about a system and its parts (“The ability to understand how parts influence one another within a whole, and the relationship of the whole to the parts”) than it is to think about the system as whole and not a sum of parts. It’s similar to thinking about and talking about a person (let’s say someone you love, someone you care about) as just one or several physical aspects or personality traits, versus relating and referring to them as a complete indivisible and unique being.
A whole is not a result of the sum of its parts or the interactions between them, but is really a single unique entity, in which all sorts of energies and dynamics are happening.
The above figures help us be aware of the difference between two ways of perceiving and relating to systems. In the first one, a business is in the middle and is “integrating” parts of the system or systems as parts that come together and should be considered in the business system and operations. The second one shows no parts coming together; instead, it shows that the business is embedded in a greater system, in which living dynamics happen; it offers a w-holistic (seeing the whole) view of life. I have found the idea of nested systems critical to uplifting our thinking and understanding of how living systems are and work.
Here are some questions to guide our reflection, based on what we just learned about systemic views and effects:
- What would be required of us as business owners, business decision makers, and investors to foster ways of working based on the nested systems view?
- How does this uplift the circular proposals at the operating level of a business? How would that allow us to shift the premises from which we operate as producers?
- What would be the effects of doing so in terms of the health and wealth of the Systems in which our businesses operate and how our businesses could benefit?
- How would it then allow us to understand economic dynamics in a different way?
Going beyond cycling: a shift in focus
An important question has been raised for the human race — maybe even in a stronger way and with more urgency in this 21st century. As Raworth puts it: “What economic mindset is needed?”
The way we think about economic activities and economic dynamics is crucial. Currently, the belief that economics consists of dynamics that result from interactions between human activities, such as producing, distributing, and consuming, is widely accepted. However, based on the work of Carol Sanford and Ben Haggard in the The Regenerative Economic Shaper Perspective Paper, we come to understand that economy denotes much more than just human-centered activities and their effects on human lives:
“Within a regenerative economy, the focus moves up from the purely mechanical activities of production and consumption to the developmental activity of wise management. (…) One must look at how the household fits within the nested systems of community and territory, and how the choices one makes will play out through time and over generations.”
This implies that an economy of wise management seeks to grow not only wealth but the wealth-generating capacity of all of its participants. (…) At its root, then, the concept of wealth encompasses the range of qualities that enable us to live well.”
Even if circular approaches to a new economy are accepted and used to redesign work in certain industries and cities, their focus is probably where the flaw is.
On one hand, by focusing only on the chain of producing-distributing-consuming goods, the Circular Economy Model sets a limit on the effects we could have on contributing to living systems and reshaping economic dynamics. On the other hand, Raworth’s proposal goes a little further and makes us think that this is not a one-dimensional or bi-dimensional matter, but multidimensional. However, even this multidimensional perspective is still confined within a human-centered perspective.
If we take a look at the World Economic Forum’s definition of a circular economy:
“A circular economy is an industrial system that is restorative or regenerative by intention and design. It replaces the end-of-life concept with restoration, shifts towards the use of renewable energy, eliminates the use of toxic chemicals, which impair reuse and return to the biosphere, and aims for the elimination of waste through the superior design of materials, products, systems, and business models.”
We can see there is a greater aspiration than simply eliminating waste and maintaining or restoring natural systems. However, even when thinking about regeneration (as an aspiration) the two concrete proposals — McArthur and Raworth — are still sourcing from beliefs and ideas that belong to the Arrest Disorder Paradigm. What is it required from us to shift to the Regenerate Life Paradigm?
Just in realizing the two aspects I so far have mentioned in this article: 1) going beyond stopping the damage we cause as part of our producing-consuming activities and; 2) the need to shift from a fragmented way of understanding systems to a w-holistic way, we can start drafting a new way of thinking leading us to really innovate from the very uniqueness of the system and therefore design our work to truly contribute through regenerative processes.
Those realizations have affected completely the way we — in our companies — approach change, in order to achieve goals at a higher level, we realized that we need to change the way we think about and bring in new strategies to advance our businesses and their effects, beyond just incremental improvements.
By aiming to redesign the way we work in a factory or a company to still provide the goods or products we create, by sourcing better materials, designing the products to live longer and to be able to reintegrate into the natural world after their live-cycle, we are just trying to mitigate or neutralize damages, meaning we are aiming to change at the level of arresting disorder. But if we raise our aspirations higher, then shift completely the way we see all nested in the Great Natural System, we can find new ways of business that actually have an effect in regenerating life. This implies a shift in focus: we need to focus on the process of adding value to life itself, instead of focusing on the goods we want to create.
In part three, we’ll see why a big shift is needed, from focusing on the product to focusing on the process:
