We tried to give nature a seat at the board table

It all started with one big question: Who owns nature?

That question guided us throughout our Value Creator semester. Together with environmental lawyers, sustainability experts, and researchers, we explored what it would mean to treat nature not as a resource, but as a key business stakeholder, alongside customers, employees, and shareholders.

Our goal was not to make companies just a little “greener.” We wanted to explore how businesses could truly respect nature by considering it in every decision that affects air, water, ecosystems, and biodiversity. We discussed ideas such as nature as a board member, advisor, or stakeholder. However, in almost every conversation, we ran into the same problem: people didn’t know how to talk about it.

In meetings, even basic business terms became unclear. What does “profit” really mean? Is it only financial, or can it also include things like clean air or restored ecosystems? And the most fundamental question kept coming up: what exactly is “nature”? Is it forests? The climate? Biodiversity? A resource? Everyone had a slightly different definition.

We realized that before changing how businesses operate, the first step is much simpler: learning how to talk about nature clearly and confidently. Before action, there needs to be conversation.

Our solution: a semantic guidebook

This insight led to our final project: a semantic guidebook designed to help people talk about nature in a business context. Think of it as a toolkit that provides language, clarity, and confidence to start meaningful discussions at work.

The guidebook includes:

• Defining nature, taking multiple knowledge systems into account.
• Why language matters, and how words shape decisions.
• Clear terminology, offering alternatives to overused or vague terms.
• Debunking common arguments against treating nature as a stakeholder.

Our hope is that this guide helps open conversations that go beyond traditional sustainability measures. Treating nature as a stakeholder has the potential to fundamentally change how decisions are made.

We already shared the guidebook with the inspiring partners we worked with, including consultancies like The Terrace, The Rock Group, and the Earth Law Centre.

You can access the guidebook as well. It’s available online via Blurb for €2, and all the money will be donated to WWF.

This is just the beginning. We hope you’ll join the conversation. We are Julia Vink, Malou Michon, Roos Kuijer and Greta Hellweg