Academy Description

What do we mean by the term ‘Future Fit’?

The scientific definition of a Future Fit organization is one that in no way undermines – and ideally increases – the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on Earth forever.

In practice this means:

  • The organization is actively working towards reaching a threshold of performance across a range of social and environmental issues. This is quantifiable through Future Fit business benchmarking goals.
  • The organization’s sense of purpose, culture and leadership is aimed at becoming a regenerative life-affirming business. This life-affirming strategic intent drives behaviour throughout all operations and stakeholder relations (including society and the environment).



What do we mean by ‘regenerative business’?

Regenerative business seeks to be life-affirming by aiming beyond the preservation and restoration of our human communities and natural ecosystems. It is about operating in ways that contribute, replenish and evolve within the evolution of life: business that is not just copying living systems logic but deeply embodying this logic, by seeking harmony within the rhythms, flows and evolutionary currents of life. Regenerative business seeks to serve life while tending toward harmony with life.



What do we mean by the term ‘life-affirming’?

Life-affirming is a quality: an intent, attitude and mind-set.

This mind-set can be characterized as a shift from an overly mechanistic and materialistic perspective of the world rooted in separation, fear and control, toward recognition of the inter-connectedness of life. It is an awakened recognition that our selves and our organizations are living systems immersed within the living systems of society which are immersed within the living systems of our more-than-human world.

This mind-set shift affects how we lead, manage and organize in business and beyond. And a Future Fit leader is anyone who is actively pursuing the development of a Future Fit organization.


Mechanistic Characteristics Future Fit Characteristics
Blame culture Compassionate culture
Controlling ethos Learning ethos
Remote management by numbers Distributed decision-making
Bureaucratic Self-organizing & locally-attuning
Short-term maximization for shareholders System Value-creation for all stakeholders
Self-preservation/maximization In service of Life
Exploitation and enslavement Empathy and empowerment
Extractive Regenerative
Adversarial Inspirational
Fear-based Love-based
Separation Participation
Anthropocentric Interconnected

And so there are quantitative aspects of becoming future-fit (as we can measure ourselves against social and environmental future fit benchmarks) and also there are qualitative aspects of becoming future-fit (as we can qualify whether our sense of purpose and leadership intent aims toward become future-fit or not).

To help this unfolding journey toward becoming a Future Fit leader and Future Fit organization, there is a Future Fit Business Benchmark (the ‘what’ – what we need to navigate by during our unfolding journey) and a Future Fit book (the ‘how’ – how we need to transform our leadership style and methods of organizing and relating as we journey ahead).