Patterns of Life: Designing Business as a Living System
How nature’s patterns of interconnection, resilience, and scale can inform an ecosystem structure of enterprise design
For over two decades, I’ve been exploring the ways nature’s wisdom can inform more regenerative approaches to business.
This inspiration stems from my personal journey as an urban ecologist and director of growth strategy for over two dozen startups. While studying and working as an ecologist in New York City, I realized the threats to the conservation of natural resources were caused by the disconnection between people, the environment, and business practices. The effects of climate change and degraded ecosystems were symptoms of a deeper systemic issue. I wanted to find solutions for those root causes.
So I set out to understand how the systems thinking of ecology could be applied to business development. In practice, that looked like leading the U.S. operations for a London-based company—from launch to acquisition in just three years—as the sole U.S. employee. I went on to build an incubator for consumer goods that supported startup growth strategy while integrating sustainable practices. We supported their businesses in product development, sales, and marketing while guiding them to develop a roadmap toward sustainable operations. Later, I worked with tech companies to develop new frameworks of innovation and became deeply involved in the climate tech sector, supporting startups to scale their tech commercially while generating positive social and environmental impact.
Through these experiences I’ve learned that long-term business growth and resilience is interdependent upon how a company nurtures its community and integrates positive environmental impact.
This is a journal of exploration into how a holistic, systems-thinking approach—rooted in ecological wisdom and driven by bold creativity—can reshape business into a regenerative force of nature.
My intention is to inspire the creative design of business models that are deeply integrated with whole ecosystems that support human well-being, foster balance with the natural environment, while advancing measurable economic development.
The hypothesis of this ideology is that regenerative systems create more connectivity which enable business to lead to shared value creation and to make the collective pie bigger for the entire ecosystem. But to fully appreciate this potential, we first need to revisit what we really mean when we use the term “ecosystem” in a business context—and how reconnecting it with its ecological roots can reshape how we design and lead organizations. The term “ecosystem” here refers to the dynamic web of relationships among people, nature, and business—relationships that, when interconnected, build a thriving community.
At its core, this blog is a space for creative exploration from which to consider and learn. Inquiry will guide each post, planting seeds for fresh perspectives and transformative approaches. It will explore how applying the principles of ecology—interdependence, resilience, regeneration—can unlock a new era of business: one that serves life rather than extracts from it. In the spirit of ecological study it embraces complexity, interrogates norms, and investigates the limits of data-driven models. Ideas are drawn from a long history of precedent in thought, cultural traditions, academic publications, and ecological patterns. The dominant assumptions of traditional economics and business development will be challenged through practical frameworks, real-world examples, and reflective questioning.
I hope to leave the reader imagining bold new possibilities while empowering them with pragmatic pathways to breathe new life into the business world.
Reclaiming Ecosystem Thinking in Business
How reconnecting business with ecological patterns can inspire more resilient, adaptive, and holistic models of value creation
Why design regenerative business models? The question feels especially urgent as we confront the consequences of extractive linear systems that degrade both ecological and economic resilience. “Ecosystem” has become a buzzword in business discourse—frequently used, rarely embodied. Yet the word has deep roots in the natural world, describing networks of interdependence, cycles of renewal, and dynamic balance.
What if we took those roots seriously? What if we saw our companies, markets, and economies not as separate from nature, but as extensions of it—subject to the same laws that govern forests, rivers, and mycelial webs?
This shift in perspective invites us to design businesses as living systems—guided by nature’s principles of interconnection, adaptive scaling, and resilience. We begin to notice familiar patterns across domains: fractals in both ferns and financial charts, energy limits shaping both metabolic & economic flows, and a human attraction to harmony, balance, and regeneration.
Recognizing that nature’s patterns echo through all living systems—including our own creations—opens the door to a deeper, more regenerative approach to business design. To explore how this insight becomes strategy, we turn to Scale by Geoffrey West, a landmark work that illuminates the hidden laws behind growth, innovation, and sustainability in both nature and human systems.
Nature operates through interconnected systems, repeating patterns, cycles of renewal, and adaptive resilience. Could it be that these same principles underlie how thriving businesses and markets function?
Is it possible that economic systems are not separate from the natural world, but embedded within it—subject to the same laws of energy, limits, and regeneration? This idea—that patterns of nature echo through all aspects of life, including human economies—leads us to an ancient insight: there is nothing new under the sun.
There is Nothing New Under the Sun
The universal patterns that echo through nature, history, and human systems
Have you heard the expression, “there is nothing new under the sun”? It means that everything happening now has already occurred in some form before, emphasizing that human experiences and events tend to repeat throughout history.
The expression "there is nothing new under the sun" aligns with the theory that there are only so many patterns in nature because it reflects the idea that natural processes and forms tend to repeat, governed by fundamental mathematical and physical laws that produce recurring structures and designs.
Nature’s Design Code: The Hidden Patterns All Around Us
There are endless examples of repeating patterns in nature like symmetry, spirals, branches, and waves that reveal the deep connections between biology, physics, and our everyday surroundings.
Symmetry: Seen in butterfly wings, mammal faces, and flower petals.
Spirals: Found in nautilus shells, sunflower heads, galaxies, and DNA.
Branching: Evident in trees, river deltas, lightning, and blood vessels.
Tessellations: Honeycomb structures in beehives and fish scales.
Fractals: Patterns that repeat at different scales, such as in fern leaves, Romanesco broccoli, snowflakes, and coastlines.
Waves and Ripples: Ocean waves, sand dunes, and wind-blown grass.
Spots and Stripes: Animal coats like those of leopards and zebras.
Fractals: Nature’s Blueprint of Scale and Structure
How self-repeating patterns maximize life’s efficiency and function
Fractals are self-similar patterns that repeat at increasingly smaller or larger scales, meaning that the structure of the whole is echoed in its parts. For example, the branching of a tree or the veins in a leaf exhibit this property: each branch or vein looks like a miniature version of the whole. Fractals are not only visually striking but also serve practical purposes in nature, maximizing surface area for processes like nutrient absorption and sunlight capture.
Biophilic Resonance: Human Attraction to Natural Patterns
Exploring how human beings innate attraction to natural forms demonstrates our belonging in nature
Humans are hardwired to be attracted to natural patterns, especially fractals, because our visual system evolved to process these recurring forms efficiently. Research suggests that viewing fractal patterns can reduce stress and promote well-being, as our brains resonate with the self-similarity and variation found in nature. This attraction is both physiological and psychological—when our environment mirrors the complexity and variation of natural patterns, we feel more comfortable and engaged.
The recurrence of patterns in nature supports the notion that there are a limited number of fundamental forms, echoing the sentiment that "there is nothing new under the sun". These patterns, especially fractals, are not only ubiquitous but also deeply embedded in our perception and appreciation of the world.
Humans are also a structure of biology, and like the structures of fractals, an echo of the whole system. Nature’s patterns repeat all around us and within us, making it only fitting that these same forms emerge in what we design and build. Our businesses can be an echo of the whole system too. If we could imagine ourselves as branches of the tree, we might consider our businesses to be leaves absorbing light, water, and oxygen, while trading nutrients back into the atmosphere and earth. So how can we grow our businesses in structures that create a balance and enhance our ecosystem?
Recognizing these universal patterns invites us to examine another layer of natural design: the laws of scale. By understanding how scale shapes living systems, cities, financial markets, and companies alike, we can uncover further insights for building regenerative business models.
Universal Laws of Scale: Fractals, Finance, and Nature’s Blueprint for Complexity
How patterns across scales can deepen our understanding of markets, ecosystems, and regenerative design
Nature’s fractals—branching rivers, spiraling galaxies, and unfolding ferns—find their counterparts in the seemingly erratic movements of financial markets, revealing a shared logic beneath complex systems. In Fractals and Scaling in Finance, mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot shows that financial markets—stocks, currencies, and beyond—mirror the fractal patterns found in nature. Just as coastlines, clouds, and tree branches follow self-similar forms across scales, market behaviors display nested, non-linear dynamics that defy simple models.
Mandelbrot’s insight invites us to rethink complexity: like ecosystems, financial markets are shaped by feedback, diversity, and adaptive cycles. No single scale or linear approach can capture their full behavior. This fractal lens invites us to rethink how we model complex systems—recognizing that both economies and ecologies thrive on diversity, feedback, and adaptive cycles. For regenerative business design, these universal laws of scale encourage models that embrace complexity, resilience, and the dynamic interplay of patterns across time and space
Natural fractals, like those in ferns, show how efficiency and resilience are encoded in repeating patterns—providing more surface area for photosynthesis and nutrient flow. Financial fractals suggest that markets, too, are living systems with cycles and nested patterns of growth, decline, and renewal. Recognizing these patterns helps us design more resilient and adaptive business models aligned with the deep structures of living systems.
Understanding these visual and structural parallels underscores the core message:
Businesses—like ecosystems—thrive when built on interconnected, scalable, and regenerative designs.
This fractal perspective naturally connects with Geoffrey West’s insights into scaling laws, which reveal deeper principles governing growth and resilience across life, cities, and businesses.In his book, Scale, he reveals that both biological organisms and human-made systems, such as cities and companies, follow universal scaling laws—mathematical patterns that govern how various attributes change with size.
These insights, grounded in the science of Scale, offer a vision for the future of business—one where growth, innovation, and resilience echo nature’s timeless wisdom.
The Power Laws of Life: Scaling and Metabolism in Nature
How organisms grow, use energy, and maintain resilience across size
In biology, as organisms increase in size, their metabolic rates do not scale linearly. Instead, they follow a sublinear pattern, specifically scaling to the ¾ power of their mass. This means that larger animals, like elephants, are more energy-efficient per unit of mass than smaller ones, like mice. This phenomenon, known as Kleiber's Law, illustrates how nature achieves economies of scale, allowing larger organisms to function efficiently despite their size.
Cities That Breathe: Innovation, Growth, and the Paradox of Urban Scaling
Why cities become more productive and creative as they grow—and what that teaches us about complexity and collaboration
Contrastingly, cities exhibit superlinear scaling in certain aspects. As a city's population doubles, metrics such as economic productivity, innovation rates, and even crime rates increase by approximately 15% more than double. This superlinear growth suggests that larger cities foster disproportionately higher levels of innovation and economic activity, highlighting the dynamic nature of urban environments.
Companies and Collapse: The Limits of Corporate Growth
Why most companies scale differently than organisms and cities—and what that means for longevity and adaptability
Companies, however, tend to follow sublinear scaling patterns similar to biological organisms. As companies grow, their per capita metrics such as revenue and innovation, often increase at a diminishing rate. This pattern indicates that larger companies may face challenges in maintaining efficiency and innovation, leading to potential stagnation or decline over time.
Applying Scaling Laws to Regenerative Business Design
How insights from nature’s patterns can guide efficient growth, innovation, and resilience in living business systems
Understanding these scaling laws offers valuable lessons for designing regenerative business models:
Leverage Economies of Scale Wisely
Like biological systems, businesses can enhance efficiency by achieving economies of scale—optimizing resource use without proportionally increasing consumption or waste.Foster Innovation Through Network Connectivity
Drawing from urban scaling, businesses can stimulate creativity and adaptability by nurturing connectivity and collaboration across diverse networks.Plan for Sustainable Growth and Natural Limits
Recognizing the sublinear scaling of corporate growth, regenerative businesses anticipate limits and design for steady, balanced development—avoiding overextension and fostering long-term resilience.
These mathematical observations not only validate the exploration of biomimicry in business but offer a logic that argues any other way may just be inefficient and perhaps dysfunctional. When we observe how life thrives—through patterns of repetition, adaptive scaling, and interconnected resilience—we glimpse pathways toward designing businesses that not only sustain but actively regenerate the ecosystems they inhabit.
By aligning business strategies with natural scaling principles, organizations can foster sustainable growth, innovation, and resilience, contributing positively to both economic and ecological systems—leading us toward a more regenerative future.
Sources
Mandelbrot, Benoit B. Fractals and Scaling in Finance: Discontinuity, Concentration, Risk. Springer, 1997.
West, Geoffrey. Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies. Penguin Press, 2017.
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