Biophilic Institutions: Building New Solidarities between the Economy & Nature

Abstract

Climate change and economic insecurity are the two most pressing challenges for modern humanity, and they are intimately linked: climate warming intensifies existing structural inequities, just as economic disparities worsen climate-induced suf-fering. Yet precisely because this economy-nature interrelationship is institutional-ized, there exists an opening for alternative institutional configurations to take root. In this essay, we make the case for that institutional remaking to be biophilic, mean-ing it supports rather than undermines life and livelihood. This is not speculative thinking: biophilic institutions already exist in the here and now. Their existence provides an opportunity to learn how to remake institutions founded on solidarities of shared aliveness and a shared alliance with life that advance the premise that nature and the economy are not just intertwined but indistinguishable.