The Economy and the Living World: Bridging the gap before it’s too late
A friend of mine recently consulted with the executive committee of a CAC 40 french company. During their discussion, the company’s CSR leader made a startling comment:
“There is no connection between the economy and life.”
He wasn’t being ironic or argumentative, he was entirely sincere.
My friend, momentarily stunned, replied: “But you’re alive. You eat food grown from the earth. Of course, there’s a connection.”
This moment captures a profound challenge in today’s corporate world. How can a leader, tasked with championing sustainability, fail to see the intrinsic link between the economy and the living systems that sustain it? The answer lies not in the individual but in the systems that shape our thinking.
The disconnected mindset
Education in silos
In many countries, including France, education divides knowledge into rigid silos. Economics is taught as an abstract discipline rooted in mathematics - graphs, equations, and financial models dominate the narrative. Biology, on the other hand, is reserved for science classes, with little cross-pollination between the two.
This separation conditions us to see the economy as a self-contained system rather than one intricately connected to ecosystems. By the time these students become business leaders, the disconnect is deeply ingrained.
Corporate abstraction
This fragmented thinking intensifies in corporate environments. Leaders step into boardrooms and leave the tangible world behind, entering what can only be described as “Theory Land.” Here, decisions revolve around spreadsheets, KPIs, and PowerPoint presentations.
Even individuals with rich personal connections to life, a family to care for, food to buy, nature to enjoy, often set aside this awareness when they enter the workplace. The corporate mindset prioritizes abstraction over reality, numbers over ecosystems.
Structural blind spots
Most organizations are structured in ways that reinforce this disconnection. Finance teams analyze profit margins, supply chain teams optimize logistics, HR focuses on managing talent and employee well-being, and sustainability teams focus on compliance, all operating in silos. Rarely do these groups collaborate to understand their collective dependence on the living world, or how their interconnected functions rely on the health of ecosystems to thrive.
The cost of ignoring life
The disconnection from life isn’t just a philosophical problem; it’s an existential risk for businesses. No company can exist without the living systems that sustain it:
Businesses that fail to acknowledge these connections risk not just reputational damage but operational collapse. An economy that ignores life is like a house built on sand, it cannot stand for long.
How Businesses can reconnect with Life
Bring scientists into the boardroom
To reconnect with life, companies need diverse perspectives at the decision-making table. Ecologists, biologists, and climate scientists can help corporate leaders understand how their actions affect, and are affected by, the natural world.
Imagine financial decisions that account not just for quarterly profits but for the health of the ecosystems that sustain those profits. Including scientific expertise in governance could bridge the gap between abstraction and reality.
Measure what truly matters
Traditional business metrics, like profit margins and shareholder returns, are insufficient for today’s challenges. Companies need regenerative metrics that track their impact on biodiversity, water cycles, soil health, and community well-being.
For example, businesses could measure how their supply chain affects deforestation, track water use and its return to ecosystems, or assess soil health through support for regenerative farming. Companies reliant on marine resources could monitor their impact on fish stocks or coral reefs.
These metrics help align business decisions with the health of the ecosystems that sustain them.
Foster cross-disciplinary collaboration
Breaking down silos within organizations is essential. Finance teams should collaborate with sustainability and HR teams; engineers should work with ecologists. This integrated approach ensures that business decisions reflect the interdependence of all functions, and their reliance on the living world.
A New Mindset: From despair to opportunity
Hearing a leader say, “There’s no connection between the economy and life,” might feel disheartening. But this disconnect isn’t the fault of individuals; it’s the product of systemic conditioning.
We must resist the urge to judge and instead embrace the role of ressources. By asking deep questions, like Socrates in ancient times, we can help others rethink their assumptions:
These questions aren’t abstract, they’re critical. The survival of businesses, and humanity itself, depends on reconnecting the economy with life.
Regrounding Business in reality
Modern businesses have drifted dangerously far from the living systems they depend on. But this disconnection is also an opportunity: to rethink how we educate leaders, how we measure success, and how we design organizations.
Reconnecting with life isn’t just about sustainability, it’s about regeneration. Businesses must move beyond mitigating harm to actively regenerating the ecosystems that sustain them. This shift calls for new ways of thinking that embrace interdependence, complexity, living systems thinking and long-term resilience.
The future of business, and humanity, depends on it.
Executive Director of the Nova SBE Leadership for Impact Knowledge Center
3 小时前Beautifully written! Thank you Veronique! #mustread #regeneration
Community, Brand, and Culture Builder ?? Corporate Communications ?? | Executive Advisor | Writer | Producer | Motivational Speaker ?? | All anchored by Nature’s Wisdom and Regenerative Principles ??
1 天前Merci for your vision and leadership Veronique Letellier
Emotional Capital for sustainable future. Founder, doctoral researcher (sustainability transformations), award-winning author
3 天前Yes to this Veronique Letellier “ Toreconnect with life, companies need diverse perspectives at the decision-making table. Ecologists, biologists, and climate scientists can help corporate leaders understand how their actions affect, and are affected by, the natural world.” Don’t forget those from social transformations, too??
Chief People Officer I Human Capital I Regeneration. Aligning co-worker citizenship & company purpose for inclusive business results.
4 天前Surprising to be so disconnected. Thanks for your article and ideas dear Veronique Letellier. The silos in our organisations and in our heads really do get in the way. I agree we need more collaboration and plurality in our experiences. In our living systems at work, we need more partnerships with ecologists, physicists, anthropologists and psychologists to keep our feet on the ground and heads in the clouds as we imagine a more regenenerative path. #regenerativeeconomics #plurality #interdependence
Fresque de l'économie régénératrice / Raising awareness, Mutualisation, Innovation, Regeneration ?? / Born in 341 ppm
4 天前Thank you so much for your words, my dear friend Veronique ?? Regeneration is a journey that makes us shift from CSR to a systemic perspective thanks to a deep reconnection with life and a new intention : looking for global Health Profit - health of our businesses People - health of those who "do" the economy as part of many other human activities Planet - health of living ecosystems that sustain all of us We are alive and ALL our activities depend on Life It's time to TAKE CARE ???? ??