Beyond Givers and Takers: Why Healthy Systems Create More Than They Consume - Andrew Cameron, Sustainability Consultant

We often talk about leadership in terms of generosity — who gives, who takes. But the longer I’ve worked in systems design as a sustainability consultant, the more I see that the real story is about creation: how we build conditions where value renews itself.

When I was first setting up Enzyme — those late nights of cold meals, glowing screens, familiar playlists and coffee catch-ups — a great friend of mine in finance handed me a book: Give and Take by Adam Grant.

He said something along the lines of, “This has been really helpful for me in life. It’s important to know which kind of person you want to be in business.”

For those who haven’t read it, Grant maps the human economy in three archetypes:

• Takers, who extract more than they offer.

• Givers, who pour energy outward, often until they’re empty.

• Matchers, who trade favours in careful balance — a kind of social accounting.

It’s a sharp and well-researched framework, true to much of modern work. But the longer I’ve reflected on it, the more I’ve realised something simple: life isn’t — or shouldn’t be — transactional. It’s generative.

The healthiest systems don’t trade energy. They circulate it. They create.

“Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes… for seeing interrelationships rather than things.” — Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

From transactions to systems

Grant’s model explains how we relate. But systems thinking — the lens shared by ecologists, designers, regenerative thinkers, even spiritual teachers — asks something deeper:

What happens when the parts start to work together?

“There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum.” — Donella Meadows

Zoom out for a moment and think of all the moving relationships. Healthy organisations — like healthy ecosystems — aren’t sustained by constant giving or taking. They’re sustained by the creation that emerges when parts work together in synergy.

Flow.

It isn’t about originality or genius; it’s about relationship — the instinct to look at what’s already here and ask, what could this become? To see connections, not silos. To harmonise.

If you’re struggling to visualise, you can see it in our own bodies. The muscular, nervous, respiratory — and every other system — are remarkable on their own. But none of them work in isolation. The muscles rely on oxygen; the lungs rely on the heart; the brain coordinates the rhythm of it all.

It’s in that constant conversation between systems that something special emerges — a harmony of moving parts creating something whole. And it’s this health and complexity that separates us from rocks and amoebas.

Healthy organisations are no different. Finance, operations, design, culture — each one vital, but never sufficient alone. When they connect and exchange energy, something greater than performance appears: vitality.

“Waste is not waste until we waste it.” — Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics

What creation looks like in practice, and the role of the sustainability consultant.

Good leadership isn’t about feeding every plant individually — it’s about tending the ecosystem so everything can thrive. When the system is healthy, it doesn’t just sustain value — it amplifies it. Relationships strengthen. Ideas move more freely. Renewal becomes self-propelling.

That’s the quiet power of regenerative design: value multiplies when you design for connection, not control.

And for anyone who still thinks regeneration is just a new hippie term for hugging trees — it’s really not that. It’s about moving from a linear, extractive mindset to one that’s restorative and value-adding. (yes, value also means money)

It’s about designing systems that can heal, adapt, and keep creating value — for people, planet, and profit.

Because when you nurture the system, the returns compound. A chef who turns offcuts into tomorrow’s broth. A hotel that channels greywater into gardens. A team that makes mentoring part of the culture, not just an HR initiative. A business that invests in its local community, strengthening retention, morale, and belonging.

Each action on its own is modest. Together, they form a pattern of care — proof that when every part contributes, the system becomes something more.

Energy flows back and forth.

It’s alive.

“Growth is not the same as development, and development is not possible without renewal.” — Donella Meadows

Why this matters

Because the world isn’t linear — or a ledger. Things grow. They loop back. They influence one another in ways we can’t easily map (yet).

When we design for those relationships — rather than against them — we move from extraction to renewal. And that’s the essence of regeneration: to make things healthy again, through restoration, resilience, or both.

Regenerative systems aren’t just about using fewer resources or reducing harm. They’re about restoring the ability of life to renew itself — in soil, in culture, in community.

As Donella Meadows wrote, “The world is a continuum.” In a continuum, the health of one part depends on the health of the others. When we strengthen relationships, we strengthen the system.

That’s what true sustainability means — not maintaining the status quo, but improving the conditions for life to keep living.

And to remember: no individual, team, or company is an island. We are all connected.

“The purpose of a system is what it does.” — Stafford Beer

The practical side of creation

Creation, then, is the most practical form of optimism — a way of saying: we can design this better.

It’s less about relentless generosity or self-sacrifice, and more about building generosity into the system itself — a structure where the act of making keeps making more: food, trust, livelihood, meaning.

When done well, it compounds. It pays dividends — in resilience, creativity, and shared value.

Because in the end, sustainability isn’t a project plan or a moral stance. It’s an understanding that everything is connected, and nothing truly disappears.

Not waste. Not effort. Not care.

We just have too many leaky and selfish systems. 

“We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them.” — Donella Meadows

And maybe that’s the paradigm and perspective shift that we need — beyond give and take, toward create. To stop treating life as something to manage, and start engaging with it as something to have a good dance with.

Hope to see you on the D-floor.

About Enzyme Consulting

At Enzyme, we help hospitality, tourism and food organisations design for regeneration — creating systems that are profitable, healthy and alive. We work at the intersection of strategy, sustainability and storytelling to help teams see their operations as living systems — and

then help those systems thrive.

🌐 www.enzymeconsulting.com

About Andrew Cameron

Andrew Cameron works at the crossroads of hospitality, systems design and regenerative practice as a sustainability consultant. With a background spanning food, travel and organisational strategy, he helps leaders translate complex sustainability ideas into simple, actionable design. His work is guided by a belief that good business — like good ecology — should create more life than it takes.

#RegenerativeLeadership #SystemsThinking #SustainableHospitality #CircularDesign #RegenerativeBusiness

First published on LinkedIn - October 9th 2025