This month, we joined other New Zealand businesses at the Towards a Purposeful Economy Forum. It was a day filled with powerful prompts for leaders contemplating how to drive systemic change to benefit people and planet, while also being successful in a traditional business sense. Conceptualised and facilitated by Sustainability Options, the presenters made one thing very clear: traditional business approaches no longer rise to the challenges of our time. Climate instability, soil degradation, inequality, and waste aren’t “externalities”, they’re the direct result of an economic system that has prioritised short-term gains over long-term resilience and wellbeing.
Often, business success is defined narrowly by year-on-year profit growth. But as several speakers reminded us, that definition misses too much. Endless growth without social or environmental measures of success isn’t resilience, it’s fragility. The question posed was not if we need a different model, but how we get there.
Nature as A Shareholder
One of the most thought-provoking ideas shared by Manu Caddie was treating nature as a shareholder. To Manu, this means moving beyond seeing the environment as a resource to be managed, and instead recognising it as a rights-bearing stakeholder in business.
In Aotearoa, we already have precedents: Te Urewera forest, Mount Taranaki, and the Whanganui River have been granted legal personhood, with guardians to speak on their behalf. Contained within the 'Nature as Shareholder' paper developed by Steven Moe from ParryField Lawyers Manu shared the Wairuakohu Charitable Trust as a case study, outlining how the principles of the paper are being applied. This can look like setting aside shares or governance seats for nature, represented by trustees, kaitiaki, or stewards committed to ecological wellbeing.
Some companies are already experimenting with steward ownership models, or with system-centric investing where the measure of success is not capital growth but system health: soils replenished, waterways restored, carbon sequestered.
Prompt for reflection: Consider what the simplest first steps toward nature featuring as a shareholder in your business might be. Perhaps it is mapping the ecosystems your enterprise depends on, identifying where your activities have the greatest impacts (positive or negative), or exploring ways to set boundaries, commit resources to restoration, or invite external guardianship perspectives. These practical beginnings can open the door to deeper shifts in how your enterprise and nature thrive together.
An available resource on this topic is ‘Nature as Shareholder’ - a paper written by Steven Moe from ParryField Lawyers. A supporting webinar discussing the paper is also available via their website - https://youtu.be/DYImeIt0jCE
Doughnut Economics
Jo Wills from Sustainability Options drew our attention to Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics model, which redesigns the economy so it operates within two concentric rings: the inner ring representing the social foundations every human needs (food, water, housing, equity), and the outer ring representing planetary boundaries (climate, biodiversity, soils, oceans). Between the rings lies the “safe and just space” where humanity can thrive.
For businesses, this approach reframes and extends a key business question: not only “will this be profitable?” but also, “does this keep us within planetary limits while meeting social needs?”
Prompt for reflection: Consider what the simplest first steps toward applying the doughnut might be in your business. Perhaps it is identifying where your business risks overshooting ecological ceilings, or where it is falling short on social foundations. Even a basic mapping exercise can highlight opportunities to rebalance your operations.
The Doughnut of Social and Planetary Boundaries (2017), https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/
Future Fit Business Framework
The Future Fit framework shared by Kat McDonald is designed to move sustainability beyond slogans into measurable, science-based action. It asks businesses to do two things: reduce their negative impacts (“do less harm”) and actively contribute to regeneration (“do more good”).
What makes Future Fit powerful is accountability: metrics, baselines, and progress tracking.
Prompt for reflection: Consider what the simplest first steps toward a Future Fit approach might be. Perhaps it is choosing one non-financial measure to track, or beginning to quantify an area of impact that until now has been described only in general terms. Small moves toward evidence-based reporting can build momentum for broader change and spark insights that inform broader systems change and impact.
Reaching the SDGs is a step on the path to a Future-Fit Society.
Inner Development Goals (IDGs)
The Inner Development Goals presented by IDG Ambassador Gary Shaw were created in response to a simple but uncomfortable truth: much is known about the climate crisis and inequality, but knowledge alone hasn’t driven significant change. What’s often missing are the inner capacities or qualities such as empathy, humility, courage, and self-awareness, that enable action on what we already know.
The IDGs presentation reminded us all that building a purposeful economy is not just about systems change, but also about personal and organisational change.
Prompt for reflection: Consider what the simplest first steps toward implementing the IDGs might be in your own context. Perhaps it is pausing more often to listen, choosing one quality like courage or humility to cultivate, or opening space for reflection across your team. These everyday practices can lay the groundwork for deeper shifts in leadership and culture and help unlock wider system change.
The IDG Framework helps people everywhere explore and embody the 23 skills across 5 dimensions.
Shifting the Measures of Success
Sally Hett and Gareth Hughes from the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) talked about our human and planetary needs being placed at the centre of an economy's activities, ensuring that these needs are all equally met, by design. We were encouraged to imagine a business dashboard where the health of natural ecosystems and communities featured alongside financial health. Where growth and success are defined by thriving people and planet, not by profit margins alone. Taken together, the frameworks we explored point toward this broader definition of success.
A wall drawing Jacqui Chan created to interweave the Three Horizons model with PMP’s flotilla/moana navigation metaphor, along with the whakatauki gifted by facilitator Trent Hohaia.
The Path Forward
The forum left us with optimism. Change is already happening. Businesses across Aotearoa are beginning to see purpose and profit not as opposites, but as allies.
At MyNoke, we will continue to contribute to a circular economy through the transformation of organic waste into soil replenishing and restoring vermicast, playing our part in addressing what we see as one of the world’s greatest challenges: the loss of healthy soils. However, the bigger opportunity lies with all of us thinking differently about how we operate, what the impact of those methods are, and whether we can do better.
So we invite you to take one more small step forward. It doesn’t need to be bold or sweeping, as even the smallest changes in how we think, what questions we ask, or how widely we consider our impacts begin to add up. Every thoughtful action, no matter how modest, moves us closer to an economy where everyday actions matter, for the benefit of future generations.