Nature Needs Champions: Five Ways Companies Can Drive Systemic Change
Day by day, the data reveals the escalating crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. As these crises threaten both our natural world and our economy, more corporations are increasingly putting nature on the agenda, often focusing on reducing their environmental impacts. However, these crises are collective challenges that require collaborative solutions.
The most impactful companies recognize that their role in addressing environmental challenges goes far beyond reducing their own footprint. They see themselves as catalysts for systemic change, using their unique capabilities to enable and accelerate collective action. This isn't just good citizenship - it's good business. Companies that help restore natural systems will build deeper stakeholder relationships, reduce risks, and discover new opportunities in the regenerative economy.
Some challenges are too big for any single company to tackle alone. Yet when companies unite around environmental goals, they can transform entire industries.
Here's how some forward-thinking businesses are moving beyond individual commitments to drive collective action.
1. Join Forces for Industry Transformation
Some challenges are too big for any single company to tackle alone. Yet when companies unite around environmental goals, they can transform entire industries. This can be done by forming coalitions, sharing best practices, and pooling resources, which might mean developing industry-wide standards for measuring biodiversity impact, creating shared platforms for tracing materials to sustainable sources, or jointly investing in ecosystem restoration.
The First Movers Coalition demonstrates this approach by uniting 96 companies across seven sectors to create early markets for clean technologies. Members commit to purchasing specific percentages of zero- or near-zero emission materials or fuels by 2030, representing an annual demand of $16 billion for emerging climate technologies. Similarly, the Consumer Goods Forum's Forest Positive Coalition brings together 21 of the world's largest consumer goods companies to move beyond individual supply chain efforts, investing in landscape-level forest conservation across key commodities like palm oil, soy, paper packaging, and beef.
2. Transform Supply Chains
Companies can use their purchasing power and supplier relationships to protect nature at scale. This means going beyond audit requirements to actively build supplier capacity, reward regenerative practices, and create incentives for biodiversity protection. The goal is to shift entire supply networks toward practices that restore rather than degrade natural systems.
Walmart's Project Gigaton illustrates this approach at scale. Since 2017, the initiative has engaged over 4,500 suppliers in sustainability improvements, with suppliers reporting a cumulative reduction of over 574 million metric tons of emissions through 2022. While Project Gigaton focuses on emissions, they also engage suppliers to set goals and report on nature-related actions connected to oceans, forests, and grasslands. The program provides suppliers with tools, workshops, and training resources to help reach these goals.
3. Enable Stakeholder Action
Businesses interact with millions of people daily - customers, employees, and communities. They can empower these stakeholders to make choices that protect nature. This includes providing clear information about environmental impacts, creating platforms for collective action, and making regenerative options accessible and attractive.
Through Patagonia’s Action Works platform, the company has connected over 2 million people with environmental nonprofits for volunteering and activism. Their 1% for the Planet commitment has directed over $140 million to grassroots environmental organizations since 1985. By embedding activism into their business model, they demonstrate how companies can mobilize stakeholders for systemic change.
The choice is clear: companies can either be passive observers of ecosystem collapse, or active architects of a nature-positive future.
4. Deploy Strategic Capital
Companies can accelerate environmental solutions by strategically deploying their financial resources. This means investing in natural capital, funding conservation initiatives, and supporting innovations that help protect biodiversity. It also means integrating nature-related risks and opportunities into all investment decisions.
Microsoft's $1 billion Climate Innovation Fund, launched in 2020, illustrates strategic capital deployment for nature. Beyond emissions reduction, the fund invests in nature-based solutions like mangrove restoration and soil carbon sequestration technologies. This demonstrates how corporate capital can support both climate and ecosystem protection.
5. Shape Policy and Markets
Companies have unique influence over policy and market structures. They can use this influence to advocate for stronger environmental protections, support nature-positive policies, and help create markets that value ecosystem services. This includes both direct advocacy and building coalitions for system change.
Consider DuPont's influence on ozone protection in 1988: after developing CFC alternatives, the company switched from opposing to supporting strict regulation, helping secure the Montreal Protocol's CFC phase-out. While DuPont was largely motivated by potential market advantages in alternative chemicals, their support proved crucial for enabling stronger environmental rules.
The choice is clear: companies can either be passive observers of ecosystem collapse, or active architects of a nature-positive future. Those that step up to this broader role won't just survive the transition - they'll lead it.
