The research, led by Ángela Martín-Méndez of the Universidad Europea de Madrid together with Francisco Campuzano-Bolarín of the Polytechnic University of Cartagena and David López-López of ESADE Business School, is built on a structured critical review spanning six connected literatures: nature-positive itself, net-based approaches such as no net loss and biodiversity net gain, the mitigation hierarchy and offsetting, biodiversity measurement and reporting, environmental management systems, and the realities of implementation in industrial firms and small and medium-sized enterprises. Rather than running a conventional meta-analysis, which the authors say is impossible in a field lacking a common outcome variable or unit of analysis, they coded each source against a common set of analytical questions covering definitions, netting logic, controllability, measurement, governance and reporting.

The review’s central finding is that nature-positive is used in radically unstable ways. In its strongest and most cited sense, it describes a societal ambition to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and move towards ecological recovery, a directional goal championed by figures such as Harvey Locke and E.J. Milner-Gulland. But the same term is routinely deployed as a corporate commitment, a project-level outcome or a vague rhetorical signal of green intent. Critics including Milner-Gulland and, more recently, Thomas White and colleagues have warned that the concept loses analytical meaning when applied without clear specification of scale, baseline, evidence standard and governance. For a bounded operational site embedded in a wider landscape, the authors argue, this ambiguity is especially corrosive: it invites either unverifiable net-outcome claims or empty slogans.

The second tension the review uncovers lies in the netting logic inherited from no net loss, net positive impact and biodiversity net gain approaches. These frameworks promise a familiar performance arithmetic: establish a baseline, quantify losses and gains, report a net result. Yet decades of scholarship, from John Bull’s foundational work on offsets to Maron and colleagues’ 2024 warning that nature-positive must incorporate rather than undermine the mitigation hierarchy, keep circling the same unresolved problems of equivalence, additionality, timing, permanence and governance. Gains created through compensation may not genuinely match losses elsewhere; some gains would have happened anyway; restoration lags far behind impact; and long-term maintenance is hostage to changing ownership and budgets. For industrial facilities, the authors conclude, compensation provides a fragile basis for claims of positive biodiversity performance, and the evidence more strongly supports on-site avoidance, pressure reduction and continuity of management.

The third tension is perhaps the most practically important: controllability. Facility managers can directly alter mowing regimes, planting structure, drainage patterns, lighting, herbicide use and contractor specifications, and these interventions can meaningfully improve habitat quality within the site perimeter. What they cannot do is fully control species occurrence, abundance or persistence, which depend on landscape connectivity, source populations, climatic variation and ecological time lags that stop at no fence line. Improved habitat may be necessary for biodiversity recovery without being sufficient to guarantee it. This asymmetry, the authors argue, should reshape accountability: managers can be held responsible for actions that are implemented, maintained and governed, but not for every ecological response over long horizons. Ecological observations, on this view, are directional learning signals rather than deterministic performance scores.

Measurement compounds the difficulty. Biodiversity is multidimensional, encompassing habitats, species, ecological functions and relationships, and any single metric captures only selected slices of ecological change. Studies by Nicholson, Martínez-Jauregui, Simpson and Wauchope all show that different indicator choices lead to different ecological and managerial conclusions. Meanwhile the reporting literature, including Boiral’s influential work on biodiversity reporting and impression management, documents how disclosure under instruments such as TNFD and ESRS E4 remains fragmented, selective and vulnerable to overstatement. The review therefore endorses a two-layer evidence logic: a first layer of intervention evidence, recording what was implemented, where, when, by whom and with what maintenance provisions, and a second layer of ecological signal evidence, consisting of repeated habitat observations useful for learning but not to be presented as proof of net biodiversity outcomes.

From these findings the authors derive their framework, Nature-Positive for Industrial Facilities, or NP4IF. It is deliberately not a new biodiversity doctrine and does not replace TNFD, ESRS, science-based targets or biodiversity net gain requirements; its contribution is operational. NP4IF treats the facility perimeter as the unit of action, evidence, responsibility and claim, and links seven components: a site baseline, a prioritisation filter that selects interventions by ecological relevance, feasibility, safety, cost and persistence, an intervention portfolio covering measures such as vegetation management, drainage improvement, lighting attenuation and reduced chemical pressure, governance mechanisms that embed actions in routine operations, the two-layer evidence system, and a claims-discipline mechanism that aligns external communication with the strength of available evidence.

The framework runs on a PDCA-compatible cycle familiar from ISO 14001-style environmental management systems. In the Plan stage, a facility defines its perimeter, identifies ecological zones and constraints and selects a small set of feasible priorities. In the Do stage, interventions are implemented through standard operating procedures, maintenance routines, contractor requirements and training. The Check stage verifies intervention continuity and records ecological observations using proportionate indicators, while the Act stage corrects weaknesses, scales effective measures and discontinues ineffective ones. A six-point decision pathway then governs what can be claimed: strong claims are limited to actions that have been implemented, maintained, governed and verified, qualified claims may describe ecological signals or trends, and claims of demonstrated net biodiversity gain are to be avoided unless robust evidence exists for baseline, equivalence, additionality, permanence, attribution and governance.

Why does this matter beyond the technical literature? Because biodiversity actions at industrial sites are notoriously fragile, vulnerable to reversal through procurement changes, contractor drift, budget cuts and staff turnover. The EMS literature shows that environmental systems function either as symbolic commitments or as practical infrastructures depending on how deeply they penetrate everyday routines, audits and management review. The authors argue that credible stewardship is associated less with ambitious rhetoric than with mundane but durable mechanisms: site zoning, maintenance standards, contractor clauses, inspection schedules and periodic review. For small and medium-sized enterprises and legacy sites in particular, a limited but persistent stewardship system may be far more defensible than expansive claims unsupported by operational continuity.

The study is candid about its limits: it is structured and critical rather than fully systematic, and the literature it synthesises is weighted towards Anglophone and European debates. Future research priorities include longitudinal studies of which interventions endure changes in budgets and management attention, testing of small feasible indicator sets, empirical work on adoption pathways in SMEs, and scrutiny of whether external disclosure under TNFD and ESRS strengthens substantive stewardship or merely produces more sophisticated claims. But the central message is already clear and likely to reverberate through corporate sustainability departments: industrial facilities should stop claiming, in abstract net-outcome terms, that they are definitively nature-positive. A far more credible claim, the authors conclude, is that a facility has implemented, maintained, monitored and reviewed a structured biodiversity stewardship process within its perimeter, reporting ecological observations as signals rather than proof. Nature-positive, in other words, is best understood not as a label a site earns, but as a disciplined management practice it performs, locally, persistently and with appropriate humility about what the fence line can and cannot deliver.

Subject of Research: An environmental management framework for biodiversity stewardship at industrial facilities

Article Title: Nature-Positive for Industrial Facilities: An Environmental Management Framework for Biodiversity Stewardship

Article References: Martín-Méndez, Á., Campuzano-Bolarín, F., & López-López, D. (2026). Nature-Positive for Industrial Facilities: An Environmental Management Framework for Biodiversity Stewardship. Environmental Management, 76(9), Article 298. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-026-02601-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s00267-026-02601-2

Keywords: nature-positive, biodiversity stewardship, industrial facilities, environmental management systems, mitigation hierarchy, biodiversity offsets, no net loss, biodiversity reporting, TNFD, ESRS, SMEs, PDCA

The review, conducted by Sunitha Prabhuram and Thamburaj Anthuvan of Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Dubai, followed the PRISMA 2020 protocol for systematic literature reviews. The researchers searched Scopus, supplemented by Google Scholar cross-searching, using Boolean strings that combined terms such as ESG materiality, sustainability materiality, financial materiality, impact materiality, and double materiality with disclosure and reporting terms. After identification, deduplication, title and abstract screening, and full-text eligibility assessment, 48 studies remained. Of the 38 studies excluded at the full-text stage, 18 lacked substantive engagement with materiality despite discussing ESG reporting broadly, nine had insufficient linkage to materiality-related frameworks, and 11 offered limited analytical contribution. A second reviewer independently audited a 25 percent subsample of the corpus to check coding consistency, with discrepancies resolved through discussion.

At the heart of the analysis lies a conceptual fault line that most casual observers of the ESG boom never see. Materiality, in traditional financial reporting, refers to information significant enough to influence the economic decisions of investors and other capital providers. Financial materiality carries this logic into the sustainability domain: an environmental or social issue matters only insofar as it affects expected cash flows, asset values, or the cost of capital. Climate transition risks, regulatory exposure, litigation threats, and supply chain disruptions all qualify under this lens because they translate into financial consequences for the firm. This investor-centered logic underpins the standards of the International Sustainability Standards Board, which anchors disclosure to enterprise value.

Impact materiality takes the opposite starting point. Rooted in stakeholder theory and sustainability governance, it requires companies to account for their effects on the world regardless of whether those effects ever touch the bottom line. Pollution, biodiversity loss, poor working conditions, and community displacement can impose enormous social and environmental costs even when profitability remains untouched. The Global Reporting Initiative is the most prominent framework built on this foundation. Double materiality, meanwhile, merges the two perspectives: a sustainability issue is reportable if it either affects enterprise value or represents a significant corporate impact on society and the environment. The European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and its European Sustainability Reporting Standards, developed by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group, institutionalize this hybrid approach, requiring firms to assess material issues across their entire value chain from both angles.

The review’s central finding is that these competing logics have not merged despite a striking convergence in reporting form. Frameworks now share standardized terminology, structured disclosure categories, and common expectations around governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics. The ISSB’s global baseline and the European standards have pushed standard-setters toward cross-framework mapping and interoperability efforts. Yet beneath this architectural alignment, the underlying assumptions about accountability remain irreconcilable. The ISSB regime serves capital providers and frames sustainability as an extension of financial reporting; the European regime serves a broader constituency of employees, regulators, civil society, and affected communities, and frames disclosure as an instrument of public accountability. Structural convergence, the authors argue, can coexist with endemic fragmentation.

The fragmentation extends into measurement practice. The reviewed literature reveals no standardized method for operationalizing materiality in empirical research or corporate reporting. Researchers rely on materiality matrices, formal double materiality assessments, disclosure indices, content analysis of sustainability reports, and narrative classification of ESG topics, each with different thresholds, coding conventions, units of analysis, and topic taxonomies. An issue deemed material in one study may be treated entirely differently in another, restricting cross-study comparability and hindering cumulative knowledge building. In corporate practice, firms operating across multiple regimes may use identical terminology while applying different assessment processes, stakeholder engagement procedures, and significance thresholds, meaning that materiality tests can be situation-specific rather than comparable across firms, industries, or jurisdictions.

The practical consequences ripple outward. For multinational companies, complying simultaneously with ISSB-style and European-style requirements means running parallel materiality assessments, documenting judgments under different logics, and preparing for assurance under divergent expectations. The review notes that newer European regimes have made materiality assessments more transparent, but most operational approaches still depend on individual firm interpretation, complicating assurance readiness and disclosure comparability. Investors and assurance providers, the authors suggest, need to consider the underlying materiality orientation of any sustainability report before comparing it across companies or jurisdictions, because two documents that look structurally similar may rest on fundamentally different judgments about whose interests the disclosure serves.

Why do these competing logics persist? The review points to deep institutional path dependence. Anglo-American reporting traditions have long emphasized investor protection and decision usefulness, while European systems have historically prioritized public accountability, a divergence now embodied in the contrast between the ISSB and the CSRD. Double materiality attempts to reconcile the two views, but the tension remains, and the literature is divided on whether financial and double materiality are complementary extensions of one another or genuinely competing disclosure philosophies. The authors also note that dynamic materiality, the idea that sustainability impacts may become financially material over time as externalities are internalized through regulation, litigation, or reputational pressure, appeared only indirectly in the reviewed studies, suggesting a promising theoretical frontier linking impact significance to financial significance.

Looking ahead, the review argues that a single global materiality standard is improbable. Instead, the authors predict a plural but synchronized future: growing structural coherence alongside persistent divergence in disclosure purpose. They reframe materiality itself, moving it from a technical reporting threshold to a multi-level disclosure-governance mechanism that connects institutional standard-setting, organizational reporting practice, and accountability orientation. The policy challenge, they contend, is not to force harmonization but to build interoperability, giving standard-setters, regulators, and firms clearer guidance on translating materiality considerations across the ISSB, ESRS, and GRI frameworks. Stronger internal governance for stakeholder engagement, assessment, documentation, and review would help companies navigate multi-regime compliance, while improved interoperability mechanisms could reduce compliance complexity and enhance the comparability and decision usefulness of disclosures worldwide.

The review also identifies a conspicuous blind spot: emerging economies. The corpus was dominated by empirical work shaped by European regulatory developments, and direct evidence on how firms in developing and transitional economies cope with conflicting disclosure obligations, limited institutional capacity, and assurance readiness remains scarce. The authors flag this absence as a priority for future research, alongside empirical studies of how firms implement simultaneous financial and impact assessments, the evolving role of assurance services across different materiality criteria, and the potential of interoperability models and double materiality approaches to function as translation systems between disclosure regimes. Until those gaps close, the global ESG reporting landscape will likely remain what this review says it already is: a two-track architecture in which the paperwork increasingly looks the same while the reasons for producing it continue to diverge.

Subject of Research: Competing ESG materiality regimes and their effects on global sustainability reporting harmonization

Article Title: Harmonization and fragmentation in competing ESG materiality regimes and their implications for sustainability reporting

Article References: Prabhuram, S., & Anthuvan, T. (2026). Harmonization and fragmentation in competing ESG materiality regimes and their implications for sustainability reporting. Discover Global Society, 4(1), Article 246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44282-026-00512-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44282-026-00512-5

Keywords: ESG reporting, materiality, double materiality, financial materiality, sustainability disclosure, ISSB, CSRD, ESRS, GRI, regulatory fragmentation, interoperability, systematic review