The nature of business

Growth in corporate adoption of measures that are perceived as environmentally benign require a rigorous justice test to prevent green exploitation, says Ai-Peri Dzhumashalieva.

Many businesses rely on nature for resources and services it provides while simultaneously contributing to nature deterioration through excessive consumption. Now, facing a climate and nature crisis that threatens business bottom lines, many firms are interested in so-called nature-based solutions (NbS) to mitigate operational risks and unlock new forms of value creation through the restoration of natural capital. These solutions involve restoring wetlands to soak up floodwaters, planting trees to balance carbon emissions, and installing green roofs to cool overheating cities.

The idea is alluring, but evidence suggests more complex reality is emerging beneath this NbS rush. In 2024, reports exposed the “NbS trap”, where massive afforestation projects are being used as a distraction to delay decarbonisation while causing significant ecological side-effects, such as soil degradation and water depletion. Furthermore, by 2025, the Global Forest Coalition highlighted a rising tide of social conflict as the pursuit of nature-based goals led to the displacement of thousands of local residents, often without their consent. These are no longer just theoretical risks; they are active human rights and ecological crises occurring under the guise of nature-based “solutions”.

Working with natural ecosystems rather than against them can reduce risks to supply chains and factory sites. Yet, behind this win-win rhetoric lies a more difficult question regarding who actually wins and who pays the price. As NbS enter corporate boardrooms, they face a rising tide of criticism. Critiques of NbS point to land grabs, labour exploitation, and greenwashing. The problem is not the idea of restoring nature itself; it is the political economy of how these projects are funded, implemented, governed, and justified.

When nature is viewed primarily as an asset class, priorities begin to slide.

The Corporate Narrative

Businesses present nature-based solutions as pragmatic tools. NbS can buffer storms, stabilise soils, and protect coasts in a volatile climate and thus investing in these solutions looks like strategic risk management. However, when nature is viewed primarily as an asset class, priorities begin to slide. The goal shifts from ecological regeneration to measurable accounting units. The promise of improved nature and human wellbeing may be replaced by corporate interests. This creates a sharp paradox. These projects are marketed as nature protection, yet they often enable a deeper corporate control over land, labour, and life.

Hidden costs

Tree planting is a very common NbS. It is frequently tied to carbon offsetting, which allows companies to claim they are balancing out their emissions. However, large-scale offsetting requires vast territories. This demand creates incentives for governments and investors to secure land cheaply and quickly. This rapid acquisition of land may negatively impact those with the least power, including Indigenous communities and traditional farmers.

There is an ecological cost as well. Converting complex landscapes into monoculture plantations might produce a tidy spreadsheet of ‘trees planted’ but it creates a messy reality on the ground. These plantations can spread invasive species and harm biodiversity. Crucially, this practice may also allow a convenient greenwashing tactic. Offsetting shifts the burden of action away from polluters and delays the necessary phase-out of fossil fuels. The question is not whether nature can help, but whether it is being used to delay the changes that matter.

The question is not whether nature can help, but whether it is being used to delay the changes that matter.

Not all of these solutions take place in remote forests. Some are urban and high-tech. Consider the ‘smart’ moss installations marketed to tackle city pollution. The sales pitch claims that moss is efficient but fragile, meaning it requires capital investment and marketisation. This flips the script. Rather than expanding natural habitats, it turns living organisms into components of a branded system. These expensive installations usually end up in wealthy districts, representing environmental privilege packaged as innovation.

The labour question

NbS are often endorsed as cost-effective because nature does the work. Trees sequester carbon and mangroves buffer storms. In reality, unpaid or underpaid people often carry the burden. Some research shows that women frequently absorb the unpaid labour required to make these projects succeed. In cities, the maintenance of green infrastructure relies on precarious, low-wage workers.

There is also the matter of non-human labour. Projects that deploy beavers to engineer wetlands can drift into exploitation. We begin to view animals as cost-saving tools rather than beings with their own agency. Once you see it, the conclusion is unavoidable. A cost-effective ‘solution’ often depends on invisible unpaid or underpaid labour.

The illusion of participation

Corporations frequently claim their projects are legitimate because they consulted the public. They hold workshops and tick boxes. Yet this participation is often superficial. It secures consent for decisions that have already been made. If community engagement is reduced to mere information sharing, it does not rebalance power among actors. It simply manufactures legitimacy for existing agendas. If participation does not change decisions, it is not participation. It is marketing.

This extends to how knowledge is valued. Corporate rhetoric often celebrates “evidence-based” design, which usually means prioritising Western science while ignoring local wisdom. This could be a serious mistake. Local knowledge offers practical intelligence about seasons, water, and risk. Ignoring it can lead to solutions that fail in the real world.

If participation does not change decisions, it is not participation. It is marketing.

A new standard

If NbS are to be credible, not merely as ecological interventions but as socially legitimate ones, its practitioners must fundamentally rethink the standards by which NbS are judged. A growing body of scholarship suggests that ‘does it work?’ may be the wrong central question. The real question must be: what realities does this project create, and for whom?

To answer this, we need a rigorous ‘Justice Test’ for corporate NbS. Traditionally, this has relied on a classic trio of considerations: distributive justice (who bears the burdens and receives the benefits?), procedural justice (who decides?), and recognitional justice (whose rights are respected?). However, in the face of complex global crises, this is no longer sufficient.

The problems of NbS demand a multidimensional framework that adds three critical lenses. Epistemic Justice requires addressing power imbalances between knowledge systems. It is not enough to include local voices; communities must genuinely be able to create or co-create projects using their own expertise rather than having scientific metrics imposed from above. 

Justice demands we move beyond treating nature solely as a service-provider for humans.

Global Justice and Capabilities Justice asks how costs and gains are distributed across borders and histories. Do these projects expand people’s real freedoms and capabilities, or do they constrain them to service the carbon targets of the wealthy countries in the Global North? Finally, Multispecies Justice demands we move beyond treating nature solely as a service-provider for humans. This requires recognising the intrinsic value and agency of more-than-human life. If a company wishes to claim credibility, it must be prepared to confront a number of non-negotiable questions (see box).

NbS can be part of a response to nature loss. However, they may risk becoming another version of extraction and control of nature wrapped in corporate environmentalism. NbS are not merely technical fixes. They are political acts that reshape land, rights, labour, and living systems. In other words, NbS doesn’t just need better metrics. Without centring justice — specifically through recognition, epistemic, global responsibility, and multispecies regard such ‘solutions’ risk reproducing the very crises they aim to solve.