Tomorrow’s Natural Business programme brings together BCI (Biomimicry for Creative Innovation) and Tomorrow’s Company, supported by Atos Origin, in disseminating how companies can inspire themselves in nature, and implement natural business strategies into their business models, in order to become sustainable and successful in an increasingly challenging global climate.
BCI, along with Atos Origin, have developed guidelines for implanting natural business concepts into organisations in order that they become fully sustainable. They argue that given increasingly volatile economic conditions and other challenges such as climate change, globalisation, resource limitation, digitalization and increasing cultural diversity, organisations need to transform the way in which they work in order to meet and grow with these challenges. An openness to change will in fact present an opportunity to those organisations that are bold enough to adapt. Natural business seeks that a company be more like a ‘dynamic living organism which thrives within ever-changing business, socio-economic, and environmental systems, all interdependent and operating within the largest system of all – the ecosystem of Earth.’ Rather than being simply controlled, stable and competitive, the company of the future is collaborative, decentralised and multifunctional
A ‘Business Inspired by Nature’ follows the practices and methods developed by nature, arguing that its 3 billion years experience has allowed it to develop very strong strategies for success. Nature is agile, creative, alert, spontaneous and responsive, and businesses should equal it. A ‘Business Inspired by Nature’ will therefore turn waste into food, fit forms around function, gain value from consumption, optimise productivity and ensure that self-interest benefits the system. It has been argued that we need to go beyond economics to overcome the current crises, and to alter the notion of unlimited growth to one of sustainable growth. It has become clear - given our planets’ limited resources - that unlimited and linear growth is unsustainable, and that much like nature, economic growth should not be linear, but rather should be phased and alternating.
The Tomorrow’s Natural Business Conference
Friday, 11 November 2011— 8.45 am for 9.15 am start
ICAEW, The Great Hall, 1 Moorgate Place, London EC2R 6EA
We will be exploring how companies can inspire themselves by and through nature, by developing and implementing 'natural business strategies' into their business models. This will help businesses become both sustainable and successful in an increasingly challenging and uncertain global climate.
According to the Harvard Business Review 50% of the current Fortune 500 companies will be renewed by 2020. Incremental change and compliance is no longer enough to ensure continued success. It is those who adapt, much like nature, who will continue to grow.
Tomorrow's Natural Business Conference offers learning, practical tools, insights and experiences to aid that journey of strategic renewal. It will ask questions including how does nature do risk? Innovation? Communication? Leadership? Governance?
Nature is innovative and adaptive it can teach us how to thrive. Many businesses will see climate change and sustainability as distant issues, and are unable to see where the systemic risks lie. But sustainability is no longer a niche interest, it’s a prerequisite in order for an organisation to be adaptive, resilient and fit for purpose. Businesses must excite rapid, dynamic, and continual change to generate greater optimisation, and as such, a strong focus will be placed on the speed, scale and complexity of the change needed. This following the lessons that can be learnt from nature