In an industry often defined by seasonal trends and disposable consumption, Wide Open World is charting a different course. At the heart of our approach lies the APres Business Model — a framework that moves beyond conventional sustainability rhetoric and places ecological balance at the centre of economic activity.
What is the APres model?
The Adaptive Planetary Resilience Exchange System: A blueprint for responsible business.
Redefining business responsibility in luxury fashion and beyond
Why Business Models matter?
The relentless pursuit of economic growth has pushed our planet beyond its natural boundaries. Traditional business models prioritise profit over environmental responsibility, treating sustainability as an afterthought rather than a guiding principle. Being "mindful" of environmental impact is no longer enough.
Developed by Olivier Maréchal in 2023, the APres Business Model presents a fundamental shift:
What kind of economy can humanity sustain without crossing planetary limits?
Grounded in the Planetary Boundaries Framework and rigorous research, APres integrates sustainability into business viability rather than treating it as an externality.
At its core, the model redefines what commerce should be, and what it should have been all along.
The missing blueprint for business
For centuries, economic theory has acknowledged the importance of maintaining natural capital, yet it has never been systematically quantified or integrated into business decision-making. Scottish economist Adam Smith understood that nature underpins wealth, but mainstream economics never defined how to maintain that foundation. Later, Herman Daly, an American economist, highlighted the economy’s blind spot—its failure to recognise safe ecological load limits.
The APres model is the first framework to address these critical gaps. It establishes how free markets can function without overshooting planetary boundaries. Crucially, it preserves the core tenets of free-market dynamics while avoiding unintended market failures—such as prioritising efficiency at scale, which inherently favours large actors and maximises macroeconomic output at the expense of resilience.
APres provides a scientifically grounded structure within which businesses can operate freely while ensuring long-term ecological viability—it’s about creating a system where business success and environmental responsibility go hand in hand.
Beyond complacent sustainability
Most sustainability strategies fall short for three main reasons:
- They prioritise efficiency over ecological stability.
- They focus on reducing harm while continuing to expand production.
- They treat carbon neutrality as the ultimate goal, ignoring broader ecosystem impacts, and ignoring the systemic nature of the challenge.
The APres model takes a fundamentally different approach. Rather than asking how businesses can grow whilst causing less harm, it asks how businesses can operate while actively preserving natural systems.
A new logic for sustainable business
Standard business models prioritise market demand and capital accumulation, often sidelining environmental concerns. The widely used Business Model Canvas, for example, lacks explicit mechanisms for ecological responsibility. APres challenges this paradigm by embedding environmental resilience directly into the business structure.
At its core is the Value-Harm Nexus, a concept that ensures ecological impact is an explicit factor in business decision-making. This shifts sustainability from a competitive strategy to a precondition for operating responsibly. Companies must scrutinise their materials, production methods, and ecological footprints through principles such as the ‘seventh generation’ test and carrying capacity governance.
Core principles of the APres Model
1. Land use preservation: For every hectare used in production, a scientifically determined amount must be preserved within the same ecological region. This principle, rooted in indigenous thinking, is mathematically obvious and foundational to true sustainability.
2. Chemical pollution limits: In the absence of safe waste management, acceptable pollution quotas should be considered nil.
3. Ecosystem integrity: Decisions prioritise local ecosystem health over generic impact metrics.
4. Avoiding intensification: The model rejects maximising production at the expense of long-term ecological stability.
5. Value proposition ethics: If demand cannot be met within planetary boundaries, it should not be served.
This isn’t about slowing harm—it’s about actively preserving what sustains life.
The APres Evaluation System
Rather than perpetuating flawed net-zero targets that assume infinite growth, APres redefines sustainability through three interconnected scores:
- Biosphere: Land conservation as a first-order priority, ensuring that economic activity doesn’t outpace nature’s ability to regenerate. Novel entities (chemical pollution, including from synthetic materials) and freshwater quality are also evaluated against defined limits.
- Atmosphere: A carbon tax mechanism to reduce emissions and leverage the investment flow to accelerate the shift to a low carbon economy. A rejection of the idea that fossil carbon can be offset by plantings, a notion that is unfortunately driving unprecedented public disinformation. Ozone and aerosols are also evaluated against defined limits.
- Hydrosphere: Direct river flow monitoring and evaluation, driving regional accountability to manage a shared precious resource.
By internalising planetary boundaries, APres shifts the focus from marginal eco-efficiency to real stewardship. It tackles the Jevons paradox, which suggests that efficiency gains often increase overall resource consumption. Instead of enforcing rigid decarbonisation pathways without systemic investment, the model establishes Stewardship Funds to ensure businesses contribute directly to conservation whilst channeling carbon tax investments toward the adoption of low carbon technologies at scale.
How it works at Wide Open World
The APres Business Model shapes every aspect of our operations:
1 Linking production to conservation
- Each jumper produced funds approximately 100m² of natural habitat on farm.
- Our partnership with the Tasmanian Land Conservancy ensures permanent protection of an additional 100m² of land, supporting growing natural reserves within Tasmania for generations to come.
2 Transparent environmental accounting
- Conservation obligations are recorded on our balance sheet as liabilities, receiving the same scrutiny as financial obligations.
3 Independent oversight
- Conservation efforts are managed by trusted scientific partners, ensuring decisions prioritise ecological needs over corporate interests.
Beyond the carbon neutraliy trap
Rather than chasing flawed carbon neutrality claims, APres takes a clear stance:
- Rejecting carbon neutrality language: Carbon neutrality is a problematic concept. Fossil carbon emissions cannot be meaningfully offset except through permanent storage — a process that takes natural systems hundreds of thousands of years. The simple truth is that fossil carbon should remain fossil: deep within Earth's crust. This means 1 unit of fossil carbon emitted is not the same as 1 unit of carbon sequestered in plants.
- Internal carbon tax: We use an internal carbon tax on our operations, a best practice, reinvesting these funds into carbon-free technology and ecosystem restoration.
- Biodiversity-focused restoration: We prioritise projects that restore entire ecosystems rather than monoculture plantations.
We encourage businesses to disclose fossil emissions separately from short-term sequestration initiatives, ensuring transparency and accountability.
Sharing the blueprint
While the APres model gives Wide Open World a clear direction, we don't view it as a competitive advantage. Sustainability is a shared responsibility, which is why we've made this framework accessible through the Natropy consultancy.
Imagine a world where production strengthens rather than depletes ecosystems—where every product contributes to biodiversity and resilience. APres is more than a framework; it is a philosophy that redefines the relationship between business and the natural world.
At Wide Open World, we prove that businesses can do more than reduce harm—they can actively protect and restore what matters most. We invite others to join this transformation: where craftsmanship meets responsibility, and where luxury no longer comes at the planet's expense.
