AMPLIFY  VOL. 38, NO. 2
  

In Part I of this Amplify series on corporate sustainability strategies, we sought to “shine a light on the challenges and opportunities of unifying sustainability efforts and showcase pragmatic approaches for greater impact.”¹ The issue looked at leadership, employees, processes, and industries through the lenses of risk, value, change management, and efficiency. Examples of unifying efforts along the corporate vertical and across entire industries were presented to inspire and guide leaders seeking sustainability strategies that are integrated, efficient, and reflect the reality of change management in complex corporate ecosystems.

Here in Part II, we move outside the company into nature and explore unifying efforts to address climate, community, and biodiversity. We present examples of efforts to recognize the “whole” problem while appreciating the interdependence of the parts. That problem can be framed as the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss (as outlined by the sister United Nations conventions on climate and nature). Alternately, it can be framed by the concept of planetary boundaries, which is increasingly being used to explain the multiple pressures on our planet’s ability to be stable and resilient.²

Regardless of the framing, the crises are real and enduring, despite the best efforts of multiple sectors of society to address them. This issue of Amplify explores how a nature-centered approach can direct action that has meaning and impact.

In This Issue

Our first article, by Catherine Drumheller, Matthew Ling, and Laura Lawlor, describes an approach for valuing the benefits of nature to ensure investments are made in the most economical and impactful ways. The authors identify six categories of benefits that can be realized from nature-based solutions, and those benefits are associated with indicators and criteria that provide a screening tool for project designers. This tool can be used to develop scores using standard ecosystem accounting principles and other methods to measure impacts on human and nature communities. The measures can be direct or based on reference values.

The authors caution about the limits of efforts where time (a critical factor in returning results) may not be part of the benefit calculus. Another limit is that avoided costs are generally overlooked, decreasing the overall valuation of any nature-based intervention. In the world of nature-based solutions, measurement approaches range from overly simplistic and optimistic to overly complex and expensive. The authors seek to present a middle ground that is both credible and accessible.

A practical middle ground is also the goal of Dan Salas and Caroline Hernandez, authors of our second piece. In their article, they illustrate how existing nature positive programs can be the best choice for companies at certain maturity levels in their nature engagements. Across the world, there are countless such programs, and the authors focus on a particularly successful approach: the Rights-of-Way as Habitat Working Group (ROWHWG) at the University of Illinois Chicago. This group of practitioners, academics, and corporations has developed and deployed the largest multi-stakeholder conservation agreement in the US. A conservation agreement is a voluntary commitment by a landowner to protect and restore natural habitats toward a specific conservation goal. ROWHWG developed the agreement to meet conservation goals for the monarch butterfly, an iconic and culturally important species currently in decline. The agreement spans the 48 contiguous states, includes participants from 70 entities (including many companies), and protects 1.1 million acres of habitat.

The conservation-agreement approach has many benefits for companies seeking to act for nature. Signatory companies share their efforts with the working group and can use the data as a credible foundation for disclosures and reporting against commitments, and ROWHWG provides tools and resources for participating companies. The article describes key elements of a successful collaboration around existing nature positive programs, including understanding the business and biodiversity need, participating within and across sectors, and leveraging third-party agreements and certifications to ensure credibility.

A net benefit for nature is central to the activities happening at Duke Farms in Hillsborough, New Jersey, USA, a campus-like setting in a peri-urban landscape. Our third article, by Margaret Waldock, Jonathan Wagar, and David Jeffrey Ringer, describes how Duke Farms addressed greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, and carbon sequestration using a science-based approach that supported the location’s strategic objectives with smart decision-making and an authentic discussion of trade-offs.

Duke Farms sets an excellent example for corporate campuses through its goals for climate and nature — local action that is scalable and replicable. The challenges faced by Duke Farms as it seeks to reduce emissions, restore ecosystems, and sequester carbon are similar to those faced by companies around the world in which strategic ambitions must bend to operational goals.

Understanding that rapid, dramatic operational decarbonization is needed to secure a stable future for our planet, Duke Farms worked with researchers to model emissions-reduction and carbon-sequestration scenarios. The model prioritized specific intervention points that were checked against reality, and trade-offs were made to maintain the overall vision of the organization and allow for human behavior. The article points to the fact that not all interventions are possible, noting that clarity of vision can help leaders quickly make decisions and act on them.

Duke Farms demonstrates that unified approaches can succeed when guided by a clear purpose, an openness to necessary trade-offs, and a science-based framework that values insights from researchers and experts with a deep understanding of both the ecology and psychology of place.

Next, Charlie Briggs unifies science-based targets and reporting requirements to show that adopting such targets can satisfy current and pending reporting while allowing companies to use targets to take action, build institutional knowledge and capacity in nature, secure buy-in and funding for future nature-related needs, and enhance stakeholder relationships with credible targets that can be openly communicated. The article uses examples from business and other sectors to show the future-focused benefits of adopting science-based targets that contribute to business resilience.

To close the issue, Enrique Castro-Leon, Katrina Pugh, and Jose Zero take another approach to supporting business resilience. They believe we need a carbon-accounting system that is clear, credible, transparent — and can stretch along supply chains and be compared across businesses. Starting with US generally accepted accounting practices, the authors advocate for an approach based on the accrual method to provide a more accurate picture across time and promote the idea that carbon investments in impermanent solutions like forest planting should be accounted for just like a commodity with a value that changes depending on circumstances. They present a suite of characteristics for such a system and call for greater collaboration to build strong systems of accounting that could yield progress toward global goals for climate and nature.

This Amplify series presents unified approaches to advancing corporate sustainability — both internally, in terms of change management, and externally, within nature and the environment writ large — to align climate, nature, and society to achieve resilience, stability, and prosperity. Reading these articles from experts in the field, it’s clear there is no single solution and no shortcuts. There may even be a lot of “wheel reinvention,” which is a shame.

As guest editors of the series, we understand that we must meet companies where they are in terms of sustainability maturity, engagement with the issue, resources, and the ability to affect meaningful change. But when we look at the planetary boundaries and see that six of the nine have been crossed, we also know that meaningful change needs to happen now — and it needs to be dramatic.

References

¹ O‘Gorman, Margaret, and Frank Werner (eds.). “Corporate Sustainability Strategies: Part I — Unifying Efforts for Greater Impact.” Amplify, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2025.

² “Planetary Boundaries.” Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, accessed 2025.