The New Face of Nature Guardianship: Corporate Environmentalism?
If you have been an activist or voice in the environmental movement or purpose-driven small business, you are about to have a strange bedfellow. Corporations now see nature's value and are leading on biodiversity in the UK and you are going to hear a lot about this in 2025.
This may not align with your way of valuing nature, but it could achieve the outcome you’ve been working towards.
Nature Risk as a business strategy has arrived on corporate boardroom agendas globally as a crisis and an oppurtunity. It’s a crisis because supply chains will suffer without nature, and businesses will fail or lose money if they can’t make product ingredients. It’s an opportunity because business leaders will evaluate and protect any risk that protects profit. They may even embrace circular and sharing economies as solutions.
If you have been an activist or small business owner championing nature, purpose or sustainability, be ready for new voices in this space.
Nature Risk Strategy may not be about protecting nature for its intrinsic worth but it will be about safeguarding nature as a resource. Businesses rely on water, air, soil, oceans, and countless other elements of natural capital to keep their supply chains running. These resources have been exploited, polluted, or taken for granted for decades, but now the supply is running low. And business is finally paying attention.
Welcome to the era of nature in boardrooms, not as a social responsibility — but as a core risk strategy.
As a conversation in the boardroom, Nature Risk should not be confused with initiatives like Faith in Nature, which gave Nature a seat on the board — naming it a company director in 2022. That was a groundbreaking exercise in systems change and social responsibility. Nature risk strategy, however, is a different beast. It moves from altruistic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to calculated risk management. Simply put, businesses are panicking over nature loss because it is now hitting their bottom line.
For decades, environmental planning laws have attempted to mitigate nature loss, often serving developers more than ecosystems. But nature’s crisis is now undeniable: no nature, no profits.
IT IS NOT A CHOICE! But some still see it that way.
I have been trying to get through to anyone that will listen for decades in my own business activism — having a sustainable business is fundamental to our survival — it’s not a choice. I’ve even shifted my focus to regenerative business since 2018 because the lack of nature is so critical that I could not talk about saving it any more; I shifted my actions to repairing and restoring nature, which is the essence of regeneration.
I continue to see some business sectors act like it’s a choice instead of a necessity to have ESG and net-zero strategies.
Let me shout into the void again — it’s not a choice!
Corporations: Our New Nature Guardians
I predict corporations will emerge as the dominant voice for nature in 2025.
Without access to natural capital, many businesses will not survive, and they are panicking. This brewing company in Suffolk is a case in point.
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures has been critical in this shift. They have given tools and resources to all sizes of businesses, especially corporations, to deal with the crisis of natural loss. With the rise of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), nature is now seen as profitable, both a threat and an opportunity. Small businesses can also benefit from BNG as well, ignore the oppurtunity for yourself as well as nature at your peril.
Corporations have the resources to regenerate nature on a massive scale if they manage risk effectively and adopt the will to act. While cynics may question their motivations, businesses will likely achieve what activists have long fought for through profit, not altruism. This was a topic of converesation on the Uncomfortable Conversations recently at the 2024 Blue Earth Summit.
Some of you may be cynical about what you see coming, but with a fresh perspective, it may be worth getting on board with how corporations embrace nature as a new profit centre. They have resources and investments to regenerate nature on a mass scale with the right will and risk management. The highly profitable BNG oppurtunity is a case in point.
A new Corporate business is emerging that leases or manages large areas of ecologically degraded land and seascapes across the UK and Europe to recover biodiversity. This ‘rewilding’ of depleted ecosystems leads to carbon capture, water purification, improved soil function, and, potentially, reduced flooding and air purification. If you think this is amazing, you are right, but remember, the motive is also that it is profitable. Vision and Profit are aligned in this example. It’s a great example of the role of government legislation in incentivising private enterprise to care for nature.
Nature is now seen as profitable. As a small business owner, you can benefit from this too, so don’t miss the boat. Check out Biodiversity Net Gain for small properties to help your local community.
Acknowledging Activist Roots
Let’s not forget the activists who slowed nature’s destruction, chaining themselves to trees, braving oceans, and pushing for legislation. You influenced change and laid the groundwork for this new era. Thank you to the “mad greenies,” the “woo-woo” listeners of Indigenous wisdom, and the purposeful leaders of movements like B-Corp, Business Declares, and others.
Now, corporations are stepping in with bigger budgets, slicker campaigns, and a louder voice. They will champion nature but might omit the stories of those who paved the way. Will they share nature’s bounty or keep it as a private reserve? Only time will tell.
Call to Action
Welcome these new guardians, even if they look and sound different from the activists of old. We may all have a different approach but together, we might just create a world with more empathy, more connection, and, most importantly, more nature.
As a business owner for three decades, I’ve centred nature in every venture I’ve built, earning labels like “eco-business” and “sustainability advocate.” I’ve been “othered” for my approach, but I’m done with that narrative.
Things are changing — perhaps not how I imagined, but the outcome could be the same. If making nature profitable saves it, I can live with that.
To all the purpose-driven businesses. The members of WINS AND BBN and BUSINESS DECLARES and BCORP — THANK YOU! You have all spoken up for Nature, Sustainability and Climate. Keep doing it so your voices are not drowned.
Big companies are already telling stories of saving and championing nature for us all. And the truth is, they will. They might leave out the chapter about what you, your parents and your grandparents did to get us to this point. And we are still waiting to see if they will keep it for themselves as a protected supply or if we will all benefit. So don’t put down your flags just yet; we still need you.
Welcome in these new guardians of nature. They may look and talk differently to you but if we work together, we may just end up with a lot more love, empathy, and nature. That’s a good thing.
As a business owner for three decades, I have placed nature at the centre of every business I have owned. It was even in the name of my most well-known business, “Nature’s Child” For that, I have been rewarded with the title of ‘eco-business’ many times over. The activist in me proudly called myself an ecopreneur. ‘Oh, she is into sustainability’ Sometimes I am proud of that and sometimes it makes me cross as I want to keep shouting…it’s not a choice!
