We live in a time when organizations are facing a growing number of seemingly contradictory expectations.
They are expected to grow while becoming more sustainable.
They are expected to become more efficient while remaining innovative.
Leaders are expected to provide direction while empowering people to take responsibility.
Never before have companies had access to so many methods, frameworks, and management approaches. Yet many organizations continue to grapple with the same questions:
- How do we remain adaptable in an increasingly complex world?
- How do we create sustainable economic success?
- How do we strengthen people without compromising organizational performance?
- How do we create change that lasts?
Perhaps it is worth taking a step back.
Instead of immediately searching for the next solution, we might first ask a more fundamental question:
What principles are we using to design our organizations?
This is where the journey of Permanomics begins.
What Is Permanomics?
Permanomics combines the thinking of permaculture with questions of business, leadership, and organizational design.
The term has been used by Australian author and activist Rayna Fahey to describe the application of permaculture principles to economic systems and communities.
At its core lies a surprisingly simple question:
What can we learn from systems that remain healthy, resilient, and productive over decades, centuries, and even millennia?
While traditional economic models often focus on growth, efficiency, and short-term optimization, Permanomics invites us to look at organizations through a different lens.
Not simply as economic entities.
But as systems made up of people, relationships, decisions, resources, and learning processes.
This naturally leads to a different question:
How can we design organizations that remain healthy over the long term, strengthen people, and continuously evolve?
The Three Ethical Foundations of Permaculture
Permaculture was developed in the 1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.
At its heart are three simple yet profound ethical principles.
1. Earth Care
Our natural foundations must be preserved and regenerated.
Every form of prosperity ultimately depends on healthy ecosystems.
Applied to organizations, this means:
- Using resources consciously
- Considering long-term consequences
- Encouraging sustainable value creation
- Taking responsibility for environmental impact
2. People Care
People are not resources.
They are the foundation of every organization.
Organizations are created by people who learn, collaborate, decide, and build together.
For companies, this means:
- Creating psychological safety
- Supporting learning and development
- Taking health and well-being seriously
- Making potential visible and meaningful
After all, organizations cannot become healthier than the people who shape them.
3. Fair Share
The third ethic promotes the responsible stewardship of resources and surplus.
It reminds us that growth has limits and that value creation comes with responsibility.
In organizations, this might look like:
- Fair compensation
- Transparent decision-making
- Knowledge sharing instead of information silos
- Responsible use of profits
- Long-term thinking beyond quarterly results
Why Is This Relevant for Business?
Many management approaches were designed to improve the efficiency of individual parts of an organization.
Yet the challenges of the 21st century are increasingly systemic:
- Climate change
- Resource scarcity
- Talent shortages
- Social polarization
- Technological disruption
- Rising complexity
These challenges cannot be solved simply by optimizing isolated functions.
Permaculture offers a different perspective.
It views systems as networks of relationships, feedback loops, and cycles.
The key question becomes:
How do we design a healthy whole?
Rather than:
How do we optimize individual parts?
Organizations as Learning Systems
When we begin to view organizations through this lens, our questions change.
We no longer focus solely on:
- Increasing productivity
- Accelerating decisions
- Improving processes
We also ask:
- How do we encourage learning?
- How do we strengthen trust?
- How do we enable meaningful collaboration?
- How do we increase adaptability?
- How do we create long-term value?
In an increasingly uncertain world, these questions are becoming more important.
The future will likely belong not to organizations that can predict everything.
But to those that can learn continuously.
From Sustainability to Regeneration
One idea from permaculture is particularly relevant for the future of business.
Sustainability often aims to maintain a system in its current state.
Regeneration goes one step further.
It asks:
How can systems become healthier over time?
In nature, this means:
- Soil becomes more fertile.
- Ecosystems become more resilient.
- Biodiversity increases.
Applied to organizations, it could mean:
- People develop new capabilities.
- Teams learn together.
- Knowledge flows more freely.
- Relationships become stronger.
- Organizations become more adaptable.
Success is therefore not measured only by profit.
It is also measured by whether a system creates the conditions for learning, development, and value creation over time.
A Matter of Mindset
Permanomics is not another framework.
Nor is it a ready-made recipe.
It is a way of thinking.
A perspective that views organizations as part of larger systems.
A mindset that values learning more than control.
Responsibility more than blame.
And the long-term health of a system just as much as short-term results.
Why We Believe This Thinking Matters
Today, companies invest significant resources in transformation initiatives.
Yet we still encounter:
- Overload
- Organizational silos
- Lack of direction
- Change fatigue
- Short-term optimization instead of long-term development
Perhaps the most important questions are not about the next framework.
Perhaps they are simpler:
- Do our decisions serve people?
- Do they serve the organization as a whole?
- Do they serve future generations?
- Are we creating value, or merely consuming it?
Permanomics does not offer easy answers.
But it offers a framework for thinking.
A framework for organizations that want to be more than successful.
Organizations that aspire to remain healthy, adaptable, and impactful over the long term.
What to Expect in the Coming Weeks
Over the next twelve articles, we will explore the twelve principles of permaculture and their relevance to organizations, leadership, and collaboration.
We will discuss:
🌱 Why great organizations observe before they act
🌱 Why learning may be more important than control
🌱 Why diversity makes economic sense
🌱 Why silos are costly
🌱 Why long-term success begins with relationships
🌱 Why change is a learning process rather than a project
🌱 And why the future belongs to organizations that can continuously evolve