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If we manage to build impact ecosystems, we can create synergies that will give us 12 dollars of impact for every dollar we invest.
This is the thought-provoking postulate from Graham Boyd, author of the book “The Ergodic Investor and Entrepreneur” in this week’s conversation about money and impact.
But if we want to get full value from the money we spend on creating change, we must learn from nature, he believes. Nature has – in contrast to the mainstream economics we lean on – found the recipe for well-functioning ecosystems that create remarkable results, says Graham Boyd.
“In nature, you can have a high level of cooperation and a high level of competition at the same time. And this is what enables nature to thrive on an otherwise fairly hostile planet,” says Graham Boyd:
“99.9 percent of all the species that have ever lived on Earth are extinct, and yet life still thrives. It is because nature understands this ecosystemic way of functioning.”
Series: New world – new economy
We need a showdown with the usual way of thinking of economics, and give much more space to nature, if we want to avoid exceeding the planetary boundaries.
That is the message from Graham Boyd, author of the book “The Ergodic Investor and Entrepreneur”. He professes ergodicity economics, a central pillar of an economy capable of delivering net positive impact, regeneration, and everything else needed for all life, including ourselves, to flourish.
In a series of conversations with Graham Boyd, we explore whether a more nature-based approach to economics is what is needed to create companies that have a more positive impact on the world.
You can contribute to the series with questions, criticism and ideas. Send them to carsten@impactinsider.
When economists see a river bed, they see a system – but not an ecosystem. Because the latter is defined by more than just the framework. It is a product of the framework conditions plus all the interactions that take place in the system.
“When many people consider a river, they see the river bed as the ecosystem itself. But the ecosystem is made up of the interactions that take place in the river,” says Graham Boyd and continues:
“There is a decisive difference between whether the river has dried up, whether there is water halfway up the river bank, or whether the river has overflowed its banks and flooded the nearby fields. These are three very different ecosystems, even though the system itself is the same.”
In the ecosystem around impact, entrepreneurs and in particular investors are too bound by traditional economic thinking, believes Graham Boyd. And that stands in the way of creating greater results.
“Neoclassical economics idolizes competition and is blind to the benefits of cooperation. It cannot see the simultaneous high levels of competition and cooperation that evolutionary biologists see in nature,” says Graham Boyd.
The cooperation between different organisms in nature means that resources are pooled, and this creates greater viability and resilience.
If we can create an ecosystem where the various players pool capital and other resources, we can create significantly better outcomes for the same money. But it requires a paradigm shift – especially on the investor side,” says Graham Boyd.
You can see the entire conversation in the video here in the article. And finally, contribute curious and challenging questions for me to ask Graham Boyd in future episodes of our series. You can write to me at carsten@impactinsider.dk
