The Business Revolution Episode 8

In the eigth episode of The Business Revolution, we journey beyond sustainability and into the realm of regeneration with Sinnet Bødewadt, an Earth Ally and storyteller from Denmark who challenges us to shift our mindsets from reduction to rebuilding.

Discover how embracing nature’s principles, like symbiosis and cyclical processes, can lead to innovative solutions and a more bountiful world for both people and the planet. Learn how to cultivate a regenerative mindset in business, unleashing creativity, and fostering positive change.

Tune in to learn more about:

• Crafting compelling narratives around regenerative practices to inspire and engage stakeholders.

• Shifting our mindset and moving beyond simply reducing harm to embracing a regenerative approach that actively rebuilds ecosystems and businesses.

• Embracing nature’s principles like symbiosis and cyclical processes to create win-win solutions and foster resilience.

• Unleashing creativity to tap into the positive energy and creative potential that comes with a regenerative mindset.

• Practical implementation by utilising tools like the plus/minus line to identify opportunities for regenerative solutions in your business.

Audio version:

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Sinnet Bødewadt is an accomplished change management leader with a strong background in both public and private sectors. As CEO of Landbrug+ and Nature+, she has over two decades of experience driving sustainable transformations, focusing on CSR, regenerative agriculture, and creating synergies between business, people, and a healthy planet.

Sinnet’s expertise spans roles as a LEAN manager, where she boosted productivity and improved work environments, as well as an international auditor and project manager implementing green strategies for organisations like IKEA Denmark and Region Sjælland (a regional Danish authority).

Sinnet is also an experienced educator, teaching LEAN leadership and fostering sustainable practices. Her visionary approach integrates environmental stewardship with economic growth, making her a champion for innovative, sustainable solutions across industries.

Dhghem website:
→ www.dhghem.com

🎧 𝐓𝐁𝐑 𝐰𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞: https://businessrevolution.earth/businessrevolution8

🎧 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲: https://open.spotify.com/episode/13qWgJAdNpF3ewueotH49y

🎧 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/into-the-realm-of-regeneration/id1736051723?i=1000669298105

📺 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐛𝐞: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7QiXDGGHjs

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Ready to move beyond sustainability and into the realm of regeneration? 🚀
On the latest Business Revolution podcast, Sinnet Bødewadt shares practical steps to cultivate a regenerative mindset in your business. https://t.co/2vhYVQilZY
🌱#businessforfuture #thebusinessrevolution pic.twitter.com/ysou7Jc0OU
— The Business Revolution (@TheBusinessRevo) September 17, 2024

Transcript – episode 8

Alan Taylor (00:00)

Welcome, revolutionaries. My name is Alan.

Mik Aidt (00:03)

And I’m Mik.

Cherry Ward (00:04)

And this is Cherry. Together, we’re the three business Musketeers who’ll guide you through the evolving landscape of business and sustainability.

Alan Taylor (00:13)

This podcast is made on the lands of the Boonwurrung, Jugara and Turrbal, and Wadawurrung people, to whom we pay our respects and acknowledgements.

Cherry Ward (00:24)

Here in The Business Revolution podcast, we’re on a mission. We intend to prove to the world that sustainability isn’t just good for the planet. It’s also good for our health, our pockets, our businesses, and for our economy.

Mik Aidt (00:40)

And I’ve been in Denmark the last month and been very privileged to meet some very interesting people. And so our guest today is someone that I met in Denmark, Sinnet Bødeward, who is a person who has been helping a big company that is all around the world, IKEA. Actually, it’s a Swedish company, but she was working in the sustainability department, helping IKEA get its sustainability feet or finding its sustainability feet about 10 years ago.

Since then, she’s worked in a number of different connections and enterprises and so on today, among many things that she does, she’s head of something called Nature Plus. But first of all, Sinnet sees herself as an Earth ally and a storyteller. And I think, I believe she’s got a story that’s worth listening to also from an Australian perspective.

Sinnet Bødewadt (01:46)

I’m an independent company owner and I’m working with my company called DHGHEM, where it’s the philosophical frame of how do we move the green transformation for our planet, how do we create and nurture a bountiful world where people and nature can coexist. So that is the main frame of DHGHEM.

The word of DHGHEM, which is very interesting, is the old word of Earth and also humans are right from that and soil is right from that. So it’s really the old energy on where we are coming from.

Mik Aidt (02:30)

Can you give some concrete examples of how you work or how you intend to work with creating that?

Sinnet Bødewadt (02:38)

Basically, right now I’m writing a book called DHGHEM Dialogues, where a young person, Nikolaj, is having dialogue with Earth and having a lot of questions on what is important. And there is some main principles on how to design and think around things in order to move forward. And an example is the Symbiotic Principle, where every part of an ecosystem has a role.

So for example, the birds sing up the photosynthesis for the plants, they can open up the photosynthesis before the sun basically coming up. And that means you can increase the yield. Just one small example. So embracing that principle, symbiotic principle, you will be able to look at synergies in everything you are doing and say how can we create a win-win situation and how do you understand that everyone is playing a role. They play an important role in the ecosystem so the idea is to be aware and intrigued by what is happening actually in our ecosystem and we can also use that for business as a principle.

Mik Aidt (03:42)

How?

Sinnet Bødewadt (03:57)

In an organisation everyone is playing a role and has a symbiotic relationship to create the value of the business. So by looking at how can each role, specific role, have these synergies moving forward, it will not be so much about, you can say, how can we control or disempower people, it will more be about how can we empower, make the responsibility of people and make them fulfil the role, but they understand the role and can in the symbiotic relationship create that more value to the whole, which is a business ecosystem, you can say that. It’s also a way to develop the business models for the customers to say, can our business be part of increasing the symbiotic relationship?

Looking at what nature actually does, you can actually improve your business model. I have a background from business and environment, with IKEA for over 20 years ago, working with corporate social responsibility. But I have also worked as a LEAN manager in the private and public sector. So I also know how to do change and transformational change. So I have both hats on. And that’s what I’m trying to put in because I think the business private market is actually a key to do a rapid change.

The public laws and stuff like that can support it. But we have to change the mindset in order to really get there. And what is interesting right now in the narrative, for example, in Denmark, we have a lot of the green transformation, sustainability is a keyword. And I want to go beyond that because I just made a small drawing.

If you have zero emission and you go towards zero emission, you will probably have reduction targets as part of it. But with reduction targets, you still have an impact. And the solution you will have will be from a reduction mindset. So that means you will, for example, reduce your energy use, will subsidise it with some other energy, but who still has an environmental impact.

But when you’re looking at the regenerative part, rebuild part mindset, so you said plus plus. You want, for example, it could be a building we have, then we want that to be a plus plus building for the environment and everything. And the people in it, you will then suddenly have a green surface where the pollinators can come and migrate on them, you will have a plus energy surplus so you can support the community.

You will have a lot of different kind of solutions coming up because you will have a rebuild regenerative mindset in things. And that means you actually do a rapid change instead because your solutions approach will be different. You’re simply opening up for another principle.

This is the generative principle which is that we are creators and humans when they are best they’ll be the creators they want to be. You know use their mind they want to be innovative and and when I have been working with business and doing the environment and you really get how you really see how you can improve the environment as well as Improving the business you will have this light coming up in people’s eyes and the heart coming up and then it just goes very fast.

And that is the moment I’m actually looking for when I’m talking with the customer to see that, because then I know they will go forward and really enjoy it and have fun on doing the way. And that’s part of our nature to have that. So in DHGHEM I’m trying to also capture what is our true nature as persons and then all control and disempowerment creates passivity. So we don’t want to go that way because change is a constant factor. So, in being able to adapt to that, that will really move things.

The other principle which is really important is everything is a cycle. So when, for example, the carbon is a cycle. The water is a cycle, and nutrients is a cycle. And also in business, you know, you have this cycle of things coming in and transformation, then a valued output for the customer internally, also to strengthen your thing. So it’s always this cycle is going on. And having a reduction mindset means that you are actually weak in the cycles instead of improving and strengthening the cycle.

So when I look at the climate, it’s a matter of strengthening the carbon cycle and not weakening, reducing the carbon. So when we remove the pollution, we actually enable the ecosystem to store a lot of carbon, but also to improve the oxygen producing capacity of our planet, which we need for our breathing.

So that is part of the carbon cycle, but that will also, when you improve the carbon cycle, you will improve the water cycle, you will improve the nutrition cycle, you will improve the health cycle, in business you will also have key elements in your business which actually have multiple benefits of the whole. So that is also one thing I’m looking at. What is the key thing, key principles we have to work with in the business so everything falls in place. So it has to have multiple positive benefits and not just one.

What we found out when we work with farmers, for example, is that when they start the regenerative journey, which is really, you can say, the upcoming things of trends and stuff like that, but really think about it as a regenerative capacity. You strengthen the ecosystem. You’re really playing your role as a steward, a guardian of the ecosystem.

And then you’re improving that. Then you’re improving the water, the soil, the health, everything. And that means the storytelling is so much stronger in the ecosystem that’s chains of energy and then helping each other for the whole. And that makes it higher resilience. So you also want to increase the resilience of your. So increasing the resilience of the ecosystem also means you are increasing your resilience to change. And when we’re looking at the change in our society, the rate of that is going very fast. And because we, for the last 80 years, have had this reduction mindset, linear industrial mindset, we have destroyed a lot of our ecosystem with pollution and then kills the carbon cycle, which then we actually see the effect of.

So instead of doing more of reducing the carbon cycle, we should strengthen the carbon cycle. And so we really have… we are really weak in our society, really vulnerable in our society at the moment. We are on a tracing point of biodiversity, a big pollution crisis.

So for example, if you’re a big company, you have a lot of employees, have big restaurants for your employees, I will look at how can we support the regenerative farmers. And also the organic regenerative, I will say, is one of the most important ones because then you don’t have the pollution as well. So how can we support that?

That means you will actually increase the nutrients levels in your food, which means you will increase the health of your co-worker, which means you can decrease the sick days, which means you can increase your mental capacity of your co-worker, which means you can increase your productivity and your innovation in your company. So it’s really linked. So looking at the principle of win-win situation and the principle of wholeness, that we are part of a wholeness system. And it’s not difficult. I mean, it’s quite simple. When you’re working with the structures and we are doing systematic, how can we improve that in our company?

So I keep coming back to the philosophical framework of things, because I think if you have millions of people working with that, you can rebuild our planet and have a healthy society in a very short lifespan.

Mik Aidt (13:41)

That sounds certainly very inspirational. I think what you have explained to us here for anyone who is, let’s say for instance, started a new job in a company as a sustainability officer. It’s about mind shift before you begin with the action point, isn’t it? It’s about creating a new atmosphere in the company before you begin with the concrete Step one, Step two, Step three.

Sinnet Bødewadt (14:07)

Yeah, and you can actually do a very small line where you have minus minus solution, your own reduction solution, minus a little bit more reduction, then you have the zero net point, then you have the plus, you know, we’re starting to rebuild, and then you have a plus plus solution. And you have that line and you put all your solutions in that you will always start the journey because then you suddenly see there’s a different kind of solution depending on if I’m rebuilding or just reducing and then you start to slowly, you know, the principle of it.

Mik Aidt (14:41)

Sinnet, we have a segment we always sort of end or round off our interviews in the Business Revolution podcast with. It’s called the Rapid Fire Tip for Action. And that’s an opportunity for you to provide some insight that you would like to inspire our listeners with or give them an idea for a way to take concrete action. So what’s the one thing that you would recommend that everyone can do right now if they want to contribute to that mind shift that you’re talking about in the corporate sector?

Sinnet Bødewadt (15:15)

Yeah, actually it is about the drawing I was showing where you could have your reduction mindset of one part of the graph going up and then you can have the regenerative rebuild target. And if you put minus minus from reduction set of solutions and reducing the energy use, water use to actually have a rebuild target, saying, okay, we want to clean the water as part of our business, helping that. From saying, okay, we want to reduce, you can say, to, well, we will have less meat, but we will have a nutrient -rich, healthy produced meat that actually rebuilds the society.

So if you have that line and you start to look at what kind of solution from a production perspective and rebuild regenerative perspective. How can we move that? Then you will find that your creativity when you sit in the room will blossom because having a plus plus house of how can you support the co -workers, the customer coming in, the environment, really helping that will create a lot of different solution depending instead of just a reduction. So that will be for me the rapid change and you can do it tomorrow or today.

Mik Aidt (16:47)

Can you hold it up? We would like to put it in the show notes as well, just so we can see it.

Sinnet Bødewadt (16:53)

So you have the reduction. You can see this is the impact. We still have impact…negative impact. You’re the reduction. You are reducing the impact. Then you have a zero point. But then in the regenerative rebuild thing, you’re actually doing positive. You are strengthening the whole business or the environment around you and you have the minus, minus in the top for the reduction you are starting it and it’s good to have also.

It’s not saying not to have a reduction solution. But then you can move on to say, okay, what kind of plus plus measurements can we have? For example, having green spaces on our buildings so pollinators can migrate. In that sense, you support biodiversity in a whole different area. That’s a plus solution.

So just have a very simple working with it. How can we make a plus plus house? How can we make a plus plus business? Improving the environment climate for the health of our co-worker and so on. And then you will see that your mental innovation is coming up and you will find a whole lot different kind of solution.

And actually a lot of coworkers, as my experience, have a lot of solutions when you’re setting that up because they’ve been thinking about it in their daily life and so on. And the great thing about going a little bit away from reduction to the regenerative is it’s a positive energy where reduction is much more about fear of losing something.

So you’re actually speeding up your energy and your power when you are having a rebuild target. So that’s a way of doing a rapid change and use your creative capacity as an organisation and innovation very fast.

Mik Aidt (18:53)

Sinnet, thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights in how we create a rapid transformation, a green transformation with some advice from the northern part of the world. Very, very valuable, I think. So if listeners were inspired and would like to know more, where can they go to learn more about the work that you’re doing?

Sinnet Bødewadt (19:15)

Yeah, I basically have my LinkedIn profile and people are welcome to reach out and then I’m shortly also will have a homepage and everything with the DHGHEM.com

Mik Aidt (19:26)

Cherry, Alan, now this was Sinnet Bødewadt who is a storyteller and an Earth’s ally and she has a lot in her green heart to talk about and stories to tell and so on. Were you able to follow what Sinnet was trying to tell us here? Alan.

Alan Taylor (19:46)

Yeah, I think I’d love to start there because when I, one of the things that I love is the way that she’s getting to the purpose. She starts with why people are doing it. And just like you’ve got pretty famous books, like ‘Starting With Why’ by Simon Sinek. When people, they demonstrate that when people understand the connection to why they’re doing something, what it means, then they can be so much more engaged in actually doing it. And I think that’s central to where… where she’s coming from in her talk and what has been being done is get people on board with what the benefits are, what it’s all about.

Cherry Ward (20:24)

Yeah, I really resonated with the story she was telling because I’m a bit of a complex systems theory geek and I love that and I think in business we don’t really look at things from a system, you know, or an ecosystem perspective. So what I do here is going to impact what I do over there and they will benefit all. So I think, you know, there’s a really beautiful story around thinking about how can what we do in this part of the business benefit everyone.

Alan Taylor (20:55)

And further to that, I think staying with that systems thinking perspective, for me, was the fact that she doesn’t try and say, do plans. You know, it’s about accepting that a system is dynamic, that you change something here and the impact can be all over the shop. And acknowledging that means that you can actually become more adaptable, become more flexible to achieve better results. And it’s actually strangely enough, less stress because it’s counterintuitive but she talks through how nature has done that throughout history. It’s going, hey, this has changed. Now I’m going to change to do that. And then it all reaches a new equilibrium. So if we acknowledge that and play with it, we’ve got huge amounts of potential.

Mik Aidt (21:38)

I agree.

Cherry Ward (21:40)

I also think I’m looking forward to reading the DHGHEM dialogues, because I think that storytelling is so powerful. I think from a neuroscience perspective, we know when you hear stories versus facts, the stories create the connections in our brains. And so I think I’d love her approach to have, think was it Nicolai, he will be the main character of the book and having that story and the dialogue, that’s a really powerful way to position how we can tackle some of our climate challenges.

Alan Taylor (22:12)

Yeah, and something else, this is great because it’s reminded me of how she talks about the narrative in there, turning it around from being, it’s going to get worse, it’s going be terrible. Thinking about, no, that narrative that you can play which motivates people and encourages people is what can be done, what will be done, what has been done, and making it better rather than being afraid of it going downhill. I think that’s another part of that storytelling for me.

Mik Aidt (22:38)

I found the whole way that he talks about nature really fascinating and how to bring nature closer to something where people in the business world typically find themselves very disconnected from nature. But really to have that overall thinking of what nature means and to embed that into this thinking I think is very, very powerful.

I also wanted to add that Sinnet speaks in a context of the Danish business community. And I must say the Danish business community has moved quite far in just the last two years in terms of getting closer to really acknowledging that we need to move fast now on getting to zero carbon, acknowledging that the science is telling us we need to speed up.

And also in Denmark, there’s a general acceptance that governments need to step in. For instance, there’s been no uproar in Denmark that there’s now a tax on petrol cars. Every person who owns a petrol car is paying a petrol tax for its cars fuel consumption. Just as an example. So there’s all these different regulations coming in place from government, local or national.

And people are a little bit like, ‘Yeah, it’s not convenient. Yes, it will cost me some money, but it’s necessary.’ So that acceptance is everywhere and that’s the context she speaks in. So when she’s raising, it’s like to me that she’s raising it up to the next level after having had all these discussions about taxes and money and all that. She’s taking the business world, the community up to a new level where we really talk about the meaning of what we do and the importance of nature.

Alan Taylor (24:41)

Yeah, I think you’re making me wonder where the opportunities are in that, from that in the narratives that we use in the media, in stories, films, you know, starting to share that to become a new norm of sorts. if you look throughout history, there’s been times where nature or something along those lines has been used in narratives. mean.

The simple things like, for example, Popeye, know, that was one of its had various purposes throughout Popeye’s existence. At one stage, it was actually used to encourage consumption of spinach. Let’s play a narrative. Let’s a story, get people and kids particularly to eat more spinach. And it’s an example of what we can do with that narrative to change whole cultures. And as has been done in Denmark, we obviously need to do it in a few more countries, including Australia.

Cherry Ward (25:38)

Yeah, absolutely. I think we need to work on our storytelling and how can we connect with people so that they can connect with the story and, you know, and evoke that change and shift those mindsets.

Alan Taylor (25:53)

And actually just building on one thing which maybe we could weave into that when she’s talking about looking at nature is looking at what we can learn from nature. It’s been done throughout history.

How is something flying? Let’s see what a bird does. Let’s explore and so yeah, you’ve got that idea of biomimicry and things like that where we can learn from nature and has been done throughout history. How do we fly? How do we do other things? Medicine is often looking at, historically people used to take this particular product, this leaf, what’s in there? Let’s learn from nature. And so if we bring that as a partner rather than something to take from, we’ve got a lot of opportunities there too.

Cherry Ward (26:39)

Well, that’s a wrap for today’s episode, folks, of The Business Revolution.

Alan Taylor (26:45)

We hope you all enjoyed this deep dive into a very different lens of how business and sustainability can work together.

Mik Aidt (28:09)

And remember, the revolution we talk about doesn’t end here. It’s up to each and every one of us to take this knowledge and inspiration that we picked up today in the episode and turn it into action.

Cherry Ward (27:06)

So whether you’re implementing sustainable business practices in your own organisation or you’re looking to advocate for change in your local community, every step and every action counts towards building a better future for all of us.

Alan Taylor (27:21)

As Cherry said, every action and every step plays a part. And one of those can be to come to our website, have a look at what we’ve got on there, our past episodes, inspiration you can get from that, the other resources, and make your voice heard. Be prepared to share that out with your colleagues and your friends that this is a place to come to because then we can amplify our own part of this at every level.

Mik Aidt (27:47)

Exactly. It’s really key for us and I think for the building up a business revolution that you get active in, you know, liking or rating or reviewing, interacting with the business revolution with our podcast, also with the topic overall, certainly, you know, enter some of our platforms. You can also subscribe to the podcast in Spotify, in Apple podcast and so on. All of this helps build, you know, not just the podcast revolution, but also the business, the real business revolution.

Cherry Ward (28:24)

Thanks for joining us on this very important journey of transformation. I believe that together we can revolutionise the way we do business and create a world that’s sustainable for many generations to come.

Alan Taylor (28:38)

So stay tuned for more insights, inspiration, and actionable steps to help reshape the way we do business for a better future tomorrow for all of us.

Mik Aidt (28:48)

Keep inspiring, keep innovating and keep pushing for positive change so we can all enjoy a brighter tomorrow. My name is Mik.

Cherry Ward (28:57)

I’m Cherry.

Alan Taylor (28:58)

And I’m Alan signing off. Don’t forget the business revolution starts and continues with you.