Words wield power; they can significantly shape people, culture, and behavior.
Yet while we grow ever more aware that we live and work in a world of finite natural resources, the language we use in business isn’t helping us make impactful change. In fact, the words we use every day hold us back from creating a regenerative future, one that respects and restores the ecological systems we all depend on to survive.
Nowhere is this more apparent than with the discourse around sustainability. Despite being in use since 1987, the concept of sustainability—with its goal of maintaining the status quo rather than reversing the damage we have caused—clearly doesn’t help move us forward.
The language we use isn’t just obsolete, it holds us back
Consider the typical language we use to talk about business success, goals, and visions. No doubt you’ve heard phrases like right to win; market penetration; ownable territory; targeting campaign; capturing value; demand; dominate the market; and first-mover advantage. You’ve probably used some of them yourself. But do you consider the assumptions that underpin this language, and whether they’re still relevant, helpful, and constructive for our work today?
All of these phrases are founded on ideas of winning and ownership, steeped in military references, colonialism, and competition. It’s an aggressive narrative, suggesting that in order for you to succeed, someone else has to lose. There is little room for partnership, alliance, or mutual success in this discourse.
It’s not just the win-lose nature of the business lexicon that causes issues, however. The very definition of what we see as business success and how it is achieved could use some reflection. The language here refers to progressive accumulation, always striving upward and seeking bigger and better share of efficiency.
In this language, “bigger” is the definition of better, anything else is worse, and shrinking is certainly a failure. Financial measurements of sale and profit no longer connect with needs, but rather with the ability to stimulate desire. It’s a narrative that can’t tell us when we have enough.
We continue to use a definition of success that’s tied to infinite growth; an entire language that reinforces the way of thinking that led to the current climate crisis, not the kind of leadership that will lead us out of it. If we’re to describe a better world, and bring forward the associated behaviors, this language needs to change.
Reframing success
Although shaping a regenerative future requires long-term, systemic, global change, we can take the important first steps today by changing the way we talk in our own businesses.
It starts with redefining what is “valuable” within our linear systems of production and consumption. We need to move away from the traditional view of progressive growth toward a place of plural abundance.
There’s an opportunity to create a language that reframes success as a communal or shared benefit and expands our idea of growth to encompass different sources of value—cultural, social, natural values as well as productive and financial ones. This is a true reflection of regeneration—the meaning that got lost amid the jostling to appear green.
Apparel company Pangaia sets a great precedent here. By describing itself as a “global collective of individuals, working together for a better future,” the business actively reframes traditional ideas of competition and success. The brand’s tagline, “Designing an Earth-positive future, together,” is rooted in notions of noncompetitiveness and alliance. In this language, success starts to become conducive to regeneration. It is shared, self-perpetuating, and restorative. Making use of eco-friendly materials, using compostable packaging, and recycling some of its offcuts are just some of the ways Pangaia translates words into action.
But it’s not just small, relatively new brands that are starting to use regenerative language. Larger businesses are also taking steps to rethink their words. Walmart’s commitment to “reversing nature loss” is an example of regenerative language in action. The business is aiming for zero emissions across its global operations by 2040, with a pledge to “help protect, manage, or restore” 50 million acres of land and 1 million square miles of ocean by 2030.
Change is already in progress: Walmart has created a supply chain finance program that both enables reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and, in a first for the retail industry, uses science-based targets to do this in a way that aims for a 1.5 degree Celsius pathway. This program marks a tangible first step in Walmart’s journey to avoid 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its global supply chain by 2030.
Small changes make big ripples
By moving the language of business away from competition toward collaboration, we create a new definition of success, qualified by values that go well beyond the bottom line. For example, something as simple as talking about value chains rather than supply chains is a small change that can add up to a big difference.
These new words recognize that the business does not exist in isolation but is part of an interconnected system with an impact beyond its own confines—on its partners, its employees, and the communities affected by its processes.
Target, for example, is updating its language to reflect its accountability as one part of a larger entity. In terms of working toward renewable energy goals, Target completed the conversion of its Vista, California, branch to become its first net-zero energy store in March 2022. The retailer is also showing innovation when it comes to reducing carbon emissions in its large-format stores, with store design that makes use of reclaimed wood, CO2 refrigerators, electric vehicle charging points, and rooftop solar panels in some locations.
Another area of language ripe for change is innovation. Rather than framing progress as disruptive and necessary to stay ahead, let’s see it as being responsive to a changing world. Materials innovator Bolt Threads leads here by speaking to the mutual benefits of its products for people and planet over profits.
Danone also speaks of collaboration, sharing its regenerative agriculture knowledge freely with partners to promote regenerative action—protecting soil, empowering a new generation of farmers, and promoting animal welfare. By 2020, Danone’s regenerative agriculture program expanded to 144,771 acres; and around 2.4 billion pounds of dairy milk (75% of Danone North America’s dairy milk) has been sourced from acreage within this program.
A new world needs new words
Increasingly, people are acting more consciously and considering more than the final purchased product when making their decisions. Brands need to articulate themselves beyond their product or service to reveal their broader impact on the people employed, the livelihoods supported, the environment stewarded, and the social impact made if they’re to stay relevant. That both Walmart and Target are now in the top 10 of solar corporate users in the U.S. demonstrates an association between brands using regenerative language and taking positive, tangible, measurable steps toward regenerative action.
As individuals responsible for bringing systemic change to businesses, there is one simple place to start. By being alert to the importance of the words we use when we speak of success, innovation, and the future, we can begin to challenge limiting and harmful connotations. We can make language micro-interventions in our conversations, e-mails, briefs, and reports, which will start to shape new meaning, new metaphors, and, ultimately, new behaviors in business.
Fiona McNae is the cofounder and CEO of Space Doctors, a global cultural and creative consultancy.
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