Corporate reporting and conservation realities: understanding differences in what businesses say and do regarding biodiversity

Businesses are increasingly called on to participate in tackling biodiversity loss but the extent of corporate commitments to act is unclear. We have a limited understanding of differences in perceptions and actions regarding biodiversity across business sectors. Doubts also remain concerning the reliability of corporate reporting as a window into business involvement in biodiversity. This paper tackles these uncertainties by using formal corporate reporting and interviews with managers and stakeholders about actions regarding biodiversity as the evidence base. Taking the cases of forestry and salmon farming in Chile, it finds sectoral differences are influenced by distinct regulatory settings and forms of stakeholder engagement. Whilst reporting serves as a partial window into each sector, manager interviews and stakeholder accounts indicate firms in both sectors perceive biodiversity primarily as a reputational risk, rather than a core responsibility. In both cases businesses have used formal corporate reporting to mask negative impacts and it has failed to leverage fundamental reform. The findings indicate that formal reporting can only ever play a partial role in understanding and motivating business action on biodiversity. Stakeholder views and the particularities of local contexts must be more clearly articulated to ensure businesses undertake substantive rather than symbolic action on their impacts. The paper concludes by reflecting on implications for Natural Capital reporting and identifies limitations and avenues for future research.