Growth happens when we, as people and as an organisation, break through daily routines and leave our comfort zone to develop new insights and skills. The baseline assessment to take part in the process of becoming a Zoöp company falls exactly within that idea.
Zoöp is a practical organisational model that helps create a world in which all forms of life can thrive. The Zoöp model can be adopted by all kinds of organisations that want to integrate ecological regeneration into their practice.
Patricia van Deurzen wants to explore this direction with Alldrain: “Fundamentally, we do business in the midst of life. Zoöp as an organisational form fits with that.”
The Zoönomic Institute in Rotterdam, the initiator behind Zoöp, puts it as follows: “Restoring ecosystems, ecological regeneration, is essential to improving the quality of life for both human and more-than-human life. To make this restoration possible, people must learn to work from an understanding of ‘participation in ecosystems’. The interests of more-than-human life in the ecosystems in which people participate must be actively represented in organisational processes, in order to establish better cooperation.”
The methodology introduced during the baseline assessment invited us to look beyond our relationships with different stakeholders. How do they support or limit each other? Who is still missing? Do they contribute to the restoration of the ecosystem, or not? It offered a new way of looking at existing relationships and their impact on an ecosystem.
A large part of the team in Dentergem, including the workers, was involved in this exercise.
For some, it felt far removed from daily practice and the activities they are involved in as employees. Others found it special and eye-opening to broaden our perspective with stakeholders that are not immediately on our radar. It led to fascinating conversations among the different people involved.
There is certainly no shortage of human diversity within Alldrain. The different backgrounds complement each other and help us gather insights that we can continue to build on. Jan-Willem and Charlotte provide the external perspective in this transition towards becoming a Zoöp company.
“As Speaker for the Living, I bring another reality to the table: that of ecosystems that have no voice in our meetings, but that do bear the daily consequences of our choices. I do not see biodiversity as decoration or a side issue, but as a co-inhabitant, co-designer and co-stakeholder of our living environment,” says Jan-Willem Burgmans, who will take on this role within Alldrain.
Charlotte Lammens, researcher at the Zoönomic Institute, led the initial kick-off with the Alldrain team. For her too, it was a unique experience, and she is curious to see how the collaboration will take shape:
“With Zoöp Alldrain, we are entering completely new territory in terms of organisations that want to become Zoöp. This also meant that I quite literally stepped into a very different landscape: the drainage pipes lay curled up like giant worms on a dark surface, soft and in all kinds of colours; I couldn’t stop looking!”
To symbolically seal the collaboration, we planted a spindle tree together. A plant that grew up in Jan-Willem’s garden in the Netherlands and will now continue its life on the Alldrain site in Dentergem.
From drainage pipe to earthworm, exciting times lie ahead for Alldrain.