Jennifer Wilkins

When Jennifer Wilkins speaks about the future, she doesn’t reach for buzzwords — she reaches for roots. “Sustainability isn’t decorative like a rose,” she says. “It’s foundational — like kūmara.” A plant that nourishes quietly beneath the soil, it mirrors Jennifer’s philosophy: real change grows from depth, not display.

As founder of Heliocene, she helps organisations prepare for a post-growth future — one that moves beyond the idea that progress must always mean “more.” Her curiosity began with disillusionment. “When I realised corporate sustainability was mostly incremental and reversible, I knew we needed a deeper analysis,” she says. “The conventional approach gives us micro wins, but it’s not changing the system.”

That search led her into post-growth thinking — a movement asking difficult but vital questions: What happens when growth stops serving society? How can we design economies for resilience rather than expansion? “This isn’t pessimism,” she says. “It’s preparation — the next evolution of sustainability.”

Jennifer’s work lives in the grey. Quoting André Gide — “The colour of truth is grey” — she reflects, “Truth isn’t found at the poles of debate. It lives in nuance, conversation, and humility.” This ability to hold complexity defines her as both thinker and bridge-builder.

Bridging is, in fact, her advice for the next generation. “Deep change requires introducing ideas that don’t yet fit comfortably into mainstream thinking,” she says. “Anchor big ideas in familiar language — then gently expand them.” If she talks about risk, for instance, she links it to resilience and relevance, not just return. “It opens new mental space.”

Still, she sees a gap in education. “Most professional training — in law, finance, engineering — still assumes perpetual growth,” she notes. “We need to prepare people for a post-growth world. Otherwise, sustainability remains a side project.”

Jennifer also points to a cultural challenge in Aotearoa. “We’re polite to a fault. We tend to quietly cancel instead of engaging in constructive debate,” she says. What she’d love instead is a safe agora — a space where ideas can be tested without defensiveness. “If we can learn to disagree with curiosity, we’ll build far stronger systems.”

Her admiration for Māori scholarship runs deep. “There’s profound wisdom in how Māori academics describe business that honours both community and commerce,” she says. “It shows we can succeed without surrendering our values.”

Writing remains her chosen medium. “It creates space for contemplation,” she says. “Readers can sit with new ideas before bringing them into conversation. That’s how deep change begins.”

Jennifer believes Aotearoa’s strength lies in its balance — innovation without extremes. “That could be our superpower,” she says. “We can carve a sensible, radical path toward an economy built on enough.”

Asked what small change readers can make today, she smiles. “Say ‘Yes, and.’” It’s her shorthand for curiosity over conflict — for building on ideas rather than shutting them down.

For Jennifer, the post-growth future won’t be built through opposition, but through imagination — one bridge, one conversation, and one grey truth at a time.

Read Jennifer’s answers to BLOOMING Sustainability — and be inspired to think beyond growth, and towards balance.

BLOOMING  Sustainability Questionnaire

Name: Jennifer Wilkins

Company & Title: Founder, Heliocene (a research, advocacy and consulting practice helping organisations prepare for a post growth future)

Website & LinkedIn Profile: https://heliocene.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferwilkinsnz/ 

* Guiding Values | Kaupapa

If sustainability were a flower blooming in your life, what would it look like? What nurtures it?

Sustainability isn’t decorative like a rose, it’s foundational to society. In Aotearoa New Zealand we draw from Māori, Pacifica, colonial and immigrant worlds, and I think we operate at our social and ecological best when these find balance. This takes constant nurturing and we really do reap what we sow in society. For me, a plant that represents this is the kūmara. It’s not indigenous, but indigenous people and, later, whalers, introduced varieties of them from their travels and trading. The plant requires careful tending and they don’t flower much. Instead, their energy goes into developing nutritious roots. That’s how I see sustainability: a network of caretakers co-nurturing a strong system below the surface that provisions us year after year.

A quote, personal motto or whakataukī that reflects your vision:

Nobel Prize–winning author André Gide once said, “The colour of truth is grey.” That really resonates with me. I think there’s real strength in being able to bend your perspective to accommodate the wisdom of others. The way we see the world, its issues and their solutions, is cultural, but there are many different cultures and worldviews, and plenty of overlap between them. That, to me, is the most interesting thing about humanity. We’re not binary teams, despite what left-right politics and media might suggest.

If you could mentor a rising change-maker in Aotearoa, what advice would you share?
Bringing about deep change means introducing ideas that don’t fit comfortably with mainstream thinking, and that requires building new language. My advice is to bridge: use both conventional and emerging terms to make your point. Anchor your message in concepts that are familiar to your audience, but recognise that conventional terms carry hidden assumptions that work against transformative ideas. So, also use language that redirects attention and opens up new mental space. For example, I might speak about business risk as an anchor to introduce post growth thinking. Risk is universal in business but it’s almost always linked to financial returns. Instead of risk and return, I talk about risk, resilience and relevance in the context of society undergoing deep change and nature in trouble.

* Leading Change | Arataki

A key moment in your journey that shaped your path:

When I realized that corporate sustainability efforts were largely incremental and reversible, I looked for a deeper analysis of the issues and a systemic approach to change. To me, post growth thinking is a vital conversation because the conventional approach to sustainability, while full of micro wins, isn’t delivering results at the macro level.

What’s the main challenge you face in driving sustainability within your sector?

The main problem is a post-growth education gap. Sustainability has largely been institutionalised as ESG, a way for organisations to reduce financial risk and protect their reputation as systemic problems deepen. At its best, ESG makes isolated positive impacts within this increasingly problematic system. A true post-growth societal shift will run deep and wide. Business alignment will need to emerge from multiple functions like law, engineering, finance and supply chain. Currently, however, professional education in these crucial streams offers very little insight into post-growth thinking, leaving a critical gap in understanding and capability. Professional bodies will need to nurture this if they are to get ahead on post-growth.

An area you need more support with:

Both growth-based and post-growth approaches need rigorous scrutiny if we want social and economic systems that advance with informed public support. This very much depends on people in conventional roles, those with the benefit of mainstream privilege, to open their doors to critical, constructive conversations. In New Zealand, I think a lot of those doors remain shut because our cultural default is to quietly cancel rather than engage in collegial critique. We haven’t yet cultivated a non-combative agora where ideas can be tested, challenged and refined without defensiveness.

An Indigenous perspective you admire and want people to be mindful of:

I’m a huge fan of Māori academic approaches to understanding and explaining indigenous entrepreneurship and the possibilities of doing business with priorities, values and mores that differ from the Western worldview and yet still maintain resilience to the financial and stakeholder demands of the dominant Western system. There is so much to learn from this field about operating business through shifting paradigms.

Your best approach for engaging stakeholders in meaningful dialogue about ESG:

To engage effectively, it’s important to choose your best medium and use it well. Personally, I feel most comfortable writing and I get feedback that suggests many people do like to read about post-growth ideas and digest them over time. It’s a contemplative and private medium for both writer and reader, which I think is ultimately conducive to seeding thoughtful, new conversations.

What do you think is Aotearoa’s superpower in creating a sustainable future?
New Zealanders have a genuine drive to punch above their weight on the world stage and tend to resist extremes. That combination could allow us to trailblaze a sensible path toward a radically different economy.

* Surfing the Green Wave | Kakariki

Books, podcasts, courses or other resources that profoundly shaped your approach to sustainability:

Ursula K. Le Guin’s anthropological science fiction has inspired me to believe that other ways of living and seeing are not only possible, but inevitable to human progress.

Events in Aotearoa or globally that you think are must-attend:

Anything run by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) Aotearoa.

A sustainable initiative or project in Aotearoa that deserves more attention:

Second-hand furniture markets, repair shops and artisan makers – in the face of IKEA.

If your work could plant one seed of change for the future, what would it be?

A safe public agora for advancing difficult conversations.

The leader(s) you endorse for a future edition of Blooming Sustainability:

Dr Jason Mika

* One actionable takeaway for our readers to make a change today for a brighter tomorrow:

The two most powerful words are “Yes, and”.

More Blooming Sustainability