Is biodiversity disclosure emerging as a key topic on the agenda of institutional investors?

Abstract

All industries depend on natural capital assets and ecosystem services, either directly, through their supply chains, or through their investments. Companies are therefore challenged to reorient their production systems and turn the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity into an opportunity for sustainable economic development. In this paper, we analyze the interest of institutional investors in these corporate policies through the role they play in the disclosure that companies make about them. For a balanced data panel of 8,320 firm-year observations from 832 global companies operating in different sectors of activity over the period 2011–2020, the results obtained indicate that institutional investors, especially those with investment a long-term investment horizon, are interested in biodiversity commitments and exercise their demand for information on these initiatives through their representatives on the board of directors. Furthermore, we show that companies are rewarded for disclosing relevant information on business policies, biodiversity management, and the valuation of ecosystem services in the value chain.