Planetary Ikigai: What business and sustainability leaders need to grasp?

Introduction: Cognitive dissonance meets the Ikigai

Over the past week, we have been inundated with news of an unfolding crisis of the banking system, as well as provided with a watered-down reminder by the IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report that it was “now or never” to secure a livable future. 

This latest episode of collapse reporting was set against the backdrop of a sequence of other disturbing news reports and broader trends, including:

• the updated forecast that gender equality was now 300 years out of reach (delivered on International Women’s Day),

• winter droughts as well as other highly irregular weather events of the past few months,

• the cost of living crisis in Europe of the past year (which is harrowing and yet seems petty in comparison with the cost of living crisis that most in the Global South have been living through for generations), and so forth.

Quite some food for thought cognitive dissonance! The gap between what-needs-to-be-done (orchestrating an immediate radical systems change) and what most of us do in our day jobs / what our employers or enterprises are in the business of delivering, could not be more pronounced. 

What ought we be doing right now? What ought our priorities be?

I have previously outlined the gaps between unsustainable core business models and regenerative ones, between inconsequential incremental corporate sustainability efforts and science-aligned sustainability action; and between compliance and perceptions management and science-aligned sustainability consulting.

It occurred to me that the Ikigai concept* - with which many are familiar - could make my earlier points more accessible. So here we go. (Thanks to Tom Savigar for indirectly inspiring me to do this).

In this piece, I apply the Ikigai concept* not to one’s individual livelihood choices, but to:

• Organisations as a whole (diagram 1)

• Corporate sustainability agendas within companies (diagram 2)

• Corporate sustainability consultancies (diagram 3)

The below diagram illustrates how these three layers of analysis (and the gaps I mention above) relate to each other, and to the broader system.

Contrary to popular perceptions, the Ikigai* is not merely a tool for helping us identify the sweet spot through which to attain life satisfaction, but rather to narrow down our reason for being, a higher calling, relevance. Hence, the concept is very transferable and highly pertinent to a discussion on corporate purpose, on value propositions and on business models.

Our starting point

As Neil Davidson of AndNowWhat, whose thoughts pervade the following paragraphs, would say, the choice ahead of us, as individuals, is not a matter of “what does one want to do” (and how one can deploy one’s strengths to monetise that), it is a matter of “what needs to be done” and how one can deploy one’s assets and capabilities to get it done - in other words “how does one choose to show up” vis-a-vis what-needs-to-be-done? The same choice stands ahead of entire teams, organisations and industries (what could we make a lot of money doing, versus what needs to be done, and how do we reconcile the two - in the context of our planetary predicament).

Our starting point is - to paraphrase Jason Hickel - that of creating needs that are not meant to be satiated, or catering to arbitrary needs with non-essential value propositions, through arguably destructive, exploitative business models. This is evidently unsustainable.

Ensuring that we - as businesses, individuals and ecosystems of players - make it our business to address the world’s needs and help solve real-world problems is an ethical imperative, our moral responsibility, a matter of integrity, and gives us a shot at leaving a meaningful legacy. And, as I have argued before and will do so later in this article - it can be a great business opportunity too.

What does the ikigai look like for business, corporate sustainability agendas & consulting?

Note that I have added a “What Causes Harm” circle/set, which is not part of the original Ikigai diagram, but is essential when bringing the focus upward from individuals to the role of business and consultancies.

As the diagrams below aim to illustrate, our current mainstream focus, practices and business models - whether in business, corporate sustainability agendas or corporate sustainability consulting - do not overlap with “what the world needs”. 

In case it is not painfully obvious: mind the gap.

Then, mind that what we ought to be doing right now, what our priority ought to be, is closing the gap.

(The respective gaps for each of the levels of analysis are obviously interlinked and mutually reinforcing, through the relationships indicated in the nested diagram in the introduction).

How is closing the gap an opportunity - and for whom?

Interestingly, for corporate sustainability consultancies, for the foreseeable decades, until and unless a global ecological collapse decimates the global economy as a whole, there are seemingly unlimited spots in the ikigai segment. And barely any have been claimed. (As you may know, a list/matrix of entities that seem to offer science-aligned sustainability consulting is upcoming - and there are more than I had expected, but in terms of global market share, their presence still amounts to a drop in the ocean). 

What an amazing - possibly unparalleled - opportunity for consultancy leaders!

To upgrade from monetising inconsequential incrementalism to monetising a global regeneration, from a dearth of integrity to an abundance of it.

For businesses, on the other hand, there is a limited number of seats in the ikigai spot. Business-as-usual will not survive under any plausible future scenario (think 15 years from now the latest).

One of 3 options below will follow: 

1. We’ll manage to put a sane system in place via degrowth, and non-essential value propositions (which destroy vital capitals in order to convert them at a loss into financial capital) will be pushed out of the sphere of what is socially acceptable and legal; or 

2. The current seemingly slowly unfolding planetary destabilisation scenario (driven by our persistent and ever increasing overshoot of most ecological ceilings) will make it physically impossible for status quo to continue, with our financial system crashing early on in the process (see this highly informative article by Umair Haque, which made its way to me via Zoe Cohen); or

3. Social tipping points will be hit before either of the above happens and topple the current system, either peacefully, resulting likely in option 1), or less peacefully, resulting in chaos or various shades of autocracy, which have at best a mixed track record in providing for stable and prosperous markets.

As the economy (systematically) shrinks to fit within the (nine) planetary boundaries, (or collapses because it has failed to systematically shrink), many businesses and whole industries around the world will be forced to sunset. In addition to being a matter of ethical imperative, it makes a lot of business sense to be one of the first-movers to relaunch as a genuine regenerative business in the new system - it is in your shareholders’ best interest. 

What can your first steps be?

Business leaders:

• Begin exploring which real-world problems (linked to the breaching of 6-8 of 9 planetary boundaries and shortfalling of all 12 social foundations) you could pivot your current core competencies towards. Or the current set plus some, minus others. Early movers can claim the spots in the ikigai space - aligning shareholder value creation with delivering regeneration.

• If you are familiar with the Twin Engines concept a.k.a the Engine 2 Imperative, begin connecting the dots of how the second engine applies in this science-aligned context - not to pursue perpetual growth, but to adapt to a future where only high-added-value-to-world activities will be permitted to grow, and even then not without limit.

• Begin learning which elements of the current system prevent you from boldly striving after regenerative value propositions, business and operating models, value chain arrangements and sane production and consumption patterns. How can you contribute to or lead at toppling these barriers, at ushering in a new, more conducive system? (Reach out if you’d like some guidance).

Sustainability champions:

• Learn about the trap of high maturity incrementalist sustainability (this may explain why you have been stuck or are about to get stuck soon at an impasse) and about the commercial opportunity for first movers in monetising regenerative value propositions - leverage it to build buy-in of fellow business leaders, shareholders, functional heads.

• Download the free Planetary Ikigai - Organisational Gap Assessment Tool (released in December 2023) to help you trigger and catalyse internal reflection, conversations and actions, and consider getting trained in applying the tool for a modest fee.

• Invite external speakers to educate your leadership on future scenarios in a science-aligned manner, preferably followed by the option of expert coaching to help handle the ensuing cognitive dissonance and channel it productively.

• Then keep repeating the core message: This (untenable, unsustainable core business with no future) is what we must run away from, and this (making money by solving the world’s problems) is what we can opt to run towards, if we start running right now.

• Explore the Sustainability-as-the-World-Needs (SWoN) Training Series - a 3-Month Acceleration Program by arkH3, which enables you to drive the interventions that may help mobilise your business leadership towards exploring transformation.

• Finally, engage science-aligned consultancies for any sustainability activities that you require outsourcing, to increase internal exposure to truth-telling and to viable approaches for building a better future.

Corporate sustainability consultants:

• If you are not a leader, engage in consulting activism, starting with the beginner-friendly options I offered earlier this year. Connect with peers in a similar spot to cross-energise and cross-fertilise.

• If you are a leader in the consulting world, jump on the opportunity for reinvention: major disruption is coming your way, and you can take the steps now to ride the wave later, or brace for fading into oblivion.

Learn how to generate demand for transformation towards Business-as-the-World-Needs with the Sustainability-as-the-World-Needs (SWoN) Training Series by arkH3.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage”.

(Anais Nin, made its way to me via Neil Davidson)

*Correction: Since the publishing of this article, it has been brought to my attention by Dr. Sabin Sulzer that the Venn diagram representation which I have adapted here is not in fact the Japanese concept of ikigai. Instead, it is the Venn Diagram of Purpose framework, developed first by Andres Zuzunaga, an author and astrologer. For more details, see:

https://ikigaitribe.com/ikigai/podcast07/

The mix up has been traced back to a blog post by Marc Winn, a business coach and entrepreneur.

About Alice Kalro

Alice is an emerging global thought leader in science-based corporate sustainability, providing practical guidance on science-aligned business transformations and urging corporations to take on a systems leadership role in order to help secure a just and liveable future for all.

She has been leading business transformation programs and developing stakeholder-centric business strategies since 2014, and currently heads the Corporate Sustainability consulting practice at Goodera.

She is a prominent Advocation Partner at r3.0, a global non-profit catalyzing a systems change towards a regenerative and inclusive global economy. She has been working to trigger a reinvention of the sustainability consulting space towards science-aligned practices.

Alice holds a masters degree in International Relations and several sustainability qualifications from Oxford, Harvard, and Stanford universities, as well as a GRI certification.

Alice has worked with teams and clients across five continents, and lived in Europe, China, and is presently based out of Bangalore, India.