Systems change for social and ecological transformation

Putting nature at the heart of scaling impact.

A narrow understanding of systems thinking is holding us back from creating transformative impact.

Emma Colenbrander and Evelyn Henderson-Child write about the need to think about our systems as social-ecological and recognise that nature is the concern of social impact makers too.

By Emma Colenbrander and Evelyn Henderson-Child

Increasingly people are recognising that our current economic system and business structures are not delivering a world that is ‘prosperous’ in the way we want to prosper; that the pursuit of more is leaving us all with less. And we are increasingly aware that there is a different path forward: we can build different kinds of societies and economies, which are not about growth and consumption, but rather about quality of life and ecological wellbeing.

Ethical businesses are playing a significant role in redefining what it means to create a better world and exist in harmony with nature. Many of you will have seen that last year, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard announced that from now on the company would have only one shareholder: Earth. A few weeks later, Faith in Nature became the first company in the world to officially appoint nature as a Director.

Non-profit organisations that focus on social impact have something to learn from this. Social impact makers are certainly getting better at systems thinking, ie, considering the wider social context in which our individual organisations operate. More and more, we work in partnership to build collective solutions, we look to bridge sectors that have historically worked in isolation, and we are aware of the importance of structural change if we want to achieve impact at scale.

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As long as ‘natural systems’ remain the domain of environmental non-profits alone, we perpetuate an arbitrary separation between nature and humans - one that suits the drivers of our exploitative systems.
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But a narrow understanding of systems thinking is holding us back from creating transformative impact. As long as ‘natural systems’ remain the domain of environmental non-profits alone, we perpetuate an arbitrary separation between nature and humans – one that suits the drivers of our exploitative systems. Instead, we need to think about our systems as social-ecological and recognise that the atmosphere, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere and the biosphere are the concern of social impact makers too.

Not every organisation needs to literally give nature a seat in the boardroom. But we can learn something from the mindset that ethical businesses are adopting when it comes to including nature as part of our systems. And as social impact makers, we have a responsibility to do so. We don’t have to get mired in complexity or stuck in building long strategy documents – we can start small and learn as we grow. We can be more purposeful in including nature in organisational decision-making frameworks and criteria, simply by asking ‘what would nature say?’ We can better consider how the problem we’re trying to solve and our solution to address that problem intersects with natural systems, not just social systems.

And for us at Spring Impact, we simply cannot achieve our vision of a world in which social problems are addressed at scale without putting nature at the core. We are now actively reflecting on what this means, strategically and operationally, for our pursuit of impact at scale.

This blog was inspired by our attendance at the Better Business Summit 2023 and at the Beyond Growth course at Schumacher College.

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