Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

6-2022

Abstract

There is growing awareness that biodiversity loss poses a significant risk to the global economy, but a lack of clarity on what this means for corporations, and how they are responding. This study provides a first quantitative assessment of biodiversity risk exposure across the world's largest listed companies, compared with their adoption of biodiversity policies, through analysis of disclosures from a sample of 11,812 companies from 2004 to 2018. We find that companies have started responding strategically to biodiversity risk, with 29% having adopted a biodiversity policy by 2018. However, around $7.2 trillion of total enterprise value remains exposed to unmanaged biodiversity risk. Companies in sectors with material impacts on biodiversity tend to have high levels of response, but there is poorer responsiveness to material biodiversity dependency risks. A natural-capital-based view (NCBV) of the firm is proposed to theorise how corporations are constrained by both their impacts and dependencies on natural capital.

Keywords

Biodiversity, dependencies, impacts, materiality, natural capacity, risk

Discipline

Biodiversity | Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics

Research Areas

Integrative Research Areas

Publication

Business Strategy and the Environment

Volume

32

Issue

5

First Page

2600

Last Page

2614

ISSN

0964-4733

Identifier

10.1002/bse.3142

Publisher

Wiley

Copyright Owner and License

Authors-CC-BY

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3142

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