From Competition to Coexistence

Yesterday, I shared a piece that asked a provocative question:
Is sustainability the death of business strategy?

In the days since, I’ve been reflecting on the deeper shift that question points to—not just in how we do strategy, but in how we think about business altogether.

For decades, business strategy has been framed around one dominant logic: competition.
Find your edge. Grow your moat. Outperform your rivals.
From business school to boardroom, we’ve treated strategy as a game of winners and losers.

But sustainability changes that game.

Why? Because it reframes the playing field. In a world of planetary boundaries, systemic risk, and interdependence, the most successful companies won’t be the ones that grow the fastest or shout the loudest—they’ll be the ones that last. And no one lasts alone.

We are moving from an era of competition to an era of coexistence.

This doesn’t mean business becomes soft or passive. It means it becomes strategic at a deeper level—one that takes into account not just quarterly returns, but long-term viability for everyone involved: customers, suppliers, ecosystems, even future generations.

Think about the metaphors we use.

Old strategy: castles and moats.
New strategy: networks and ecosystems.

Moats protect. But they also isolate.
Mycelium, the fungal network beneath a forest, connects. It spreads knowledge, nutrients, resilience. It helps the whole system thrive.

That’s the shift we’re being asked to make.

It’s not just about protecting your position.
It’s about contributing to the conditions that make long-term success possible—not just for you, but for everyone you’re in relationship with.

So what might this look like in practice?

• Sharing innovations instead of hoarding them.

• Designing products that solve collective problems, not create new dependencies.

• Investing in value chains instead of just extracting value from them.

• Thinking in decades, not quarters.

Sustainability-oriented strategy is not about surrendering ambition. It’s about redirecting ambition toward something more enduring, more generous, more wise.

And that’s where I’ll leave you:

If the old strategy asked, How do we win?
The new one asks, How do we matter?

Thanks for reading—and as always, I’d love to hear how this shift shows up in your own work or industry.