Nature Positive or Nature Ploy? The risks of greenwashing in corporate biodiversity goals

Are companies really saving the planet or just slapping “nature positive” on their annual reports? Corporate biodiversity goals are on the rise, but are they genuine commitments or greenwashing ploys? Spoiler alert: nature is not buying it and neither should you.

Background

Firstly, what is nature positivity, and what does that have to do with ESG and corporate goals? At its core, nature positivity is the idea of halting and reversing biodiversity loss. The goal is not only to stop further damage to ecosystems but also to restore and increase nature, meaning more forests, more wildlife, and healthier ecosystems by 2030.

How are Businesses Addressing the Nature Positivity Initiative?

More businesses are jumping on the “nature positive” bandwagon, pledging to halt and reverse biodiversity loss while pursuing profits. For example, Olam Food Ingredients (OFI) invests $8–$11 million each year in creating honeybee habitats. This helps pollinate almond trees and boost yields, which have dropped due to stressed bee populations. While this example shows that protecting nature can make good business sense, many companies still lack clear plans or ways to measure their impact. Unlike carbon emissions, which can be easily measured, nature is harder to quantify, making progress difficult to track. With no universal standards, companies often use different metrics that suit their narrative, raising concerns about how meaningful their efforts really are. Consequently, this creates room for greenwashing.

Source: Freepik

The Risk of Greenwashing

While the corporate push for nature positivity shows promise, there is a real risk of greenwashing. As aforementioned, without clear rules or standardised metrics, businesses can exaggerate their impact or sidestep accountability. A recent example is Coca-Cola, which joined the Business for Nature coalition in 2021 and pledged to become nature positive by 2030. However, it quietly dropped a key commitment to make 25% of its packaging reusable by 2030. Instead, Coca-Cola replaced this with a less ambitious target of using 35-40% recycled material in packaging.

This shift shows how companies can avoid accountability when there are no clear metrics to measure their impact. Coca-Cola’s failure to follow through on its reusable packaging promise is a prime example. Despite its pledges, it remains the UK’s largest plastic polluter. With no reliable way to verify nature positivity, consumers and stakeholders can’t be sure whether companies are truly making a difference or simply jumping on the trend to appear more nature positive.

With the risk of greenwashing now evident, the pressing question is: how do we move forward? To prevent nature positivity from becoming a hollow buzzword, stronger guidelines and reliable metrics are needed. Organisations such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), formally launched in 2021, aim to standardise how businesses report biodiversity risks. They do this by assessing how business activities impact natural ecosystems, setting metrics to track these effects, and incorporating this information into business decisions. Although still voluntary, the TNFD has already attracted over 300 companies’ support, including GSK, Nestlé as well as LVMH and H&M.

Nature positivity has the potential to transform the way businesses protect and restore biodiversity, but it will only succeed if it goes beyond vague promises and greenwashing to deliver real, measurable action.

Written by: Yiting Chen