A Service Design principle to make nature part of every decision

Usually, the big decisions in big organisations are made around a big table. That's the table where the board of directors meet. And these people are all humans. And humans usually vote for what's best for them. And we all know where that brought us.

But, one company decided to add a non-human as a person who can vote for decisions. That non-human is nature.

That company is called Faith In Nature.

But you might ask: "Daniele, how can nature vote yes or no to a proposition? Do we send a survey to every ant, bird, plant and droplet of water?"

Yeah, you got me. In fact, the company has asked external experts who know the topic of sustainability well to play the role of nature.

Even if we don't have access to external experts who can do that, we still can steal this inspiration. For example, the next time you have to make a decision in your team, you could ask someone to play the role of nature when voting.

Or you could ask everyone to vote twice, once as themselves and once to vote as if they would represent the planet, every ant, bird, plant and droplet of water.

Action question

How could you add nature as a decision-maker in your team or company? Who would be the best person to represent nature in your team or company?

Footnotes

(1) In more technical jargon, we can say that environmental law experts, Lawyers for Nature, act as the first representative for nature on the board. At least that's how Simeon Rose, creative director of "Faith In Nature", described it on Edie's website, a magazine about sustainable business.

Daniele's notes

• This is the first shitty draft of this principle

• This principle might, one day make it in the fifth book in the "Service Design Principles" series that explores how to serve humans and the planet better.

• If you're curious about service design principles, you can get the four previous books in the series, with proofread principles and less grammatical creativity.