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

Published in the renowned journal npj Biodiversity, the investigation delves deeply into the nuanced political and economic undercurrents shaping the discourse at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international summit held in late 2024 and early 2025. The research team, comprising experts from Australia, Chile, China, and Japan and led by Emeritus Professor Ralf Buckley, scrutinizes how the rhetoric of “nature positivity” contrasts starkly with the sector-wide realities, particularly in the tourism industry—a sector often championed as a driver of sustainable development.

A critical aspect of the study differentiates between “small-t tourism,” encompassing activities such as visitors and mobile tours in protected national parks, and “Big Tourism,” which represents the sprawling operations of multi-billion-dollar global corporations backed by powerful financial entities. Despite widespread claims, the researchers reveal that a minuscule fraction—only about 0.01%—of this vast tourism sector actually generates net positive contributions to environmental conservation. This statistic starkly illuminates the disconnect between public perceptions driven by green marketing and the ecological footprints of tourism conglomerates.

Professor Buckley’s team highlights that Big Tourism, significantly influenced by the private equity sector valued at around US$13 trillion, exerts substantial net negative impacts, notably through aggressive land acquisitions often termed “land grabs.” These actions frequently encroach upon public protected areas, detracting from conservation goals and exacerbating habitat loss. The study underscores that while “nature positive” language proliferates in corporate communications and governmental rhetoric, the underlying practices often prioritize profit and expansion over biodiversity protection.

This dichotomy extends to policy-making realms, with Australia serving as a pertinent case study. The researchers point out that although Australian governments have adopted “nature positive” terminology in their political discourse, there has been a consistent failure to translate rhetoric into substantive action. A poignant example lies in the unfulfilled promise to establish an independent Environment Protection Agency, a move deemed vital for enforcing environmental regulations and safeguarding biodiversity.

The timing of these findings is particularly significant, arriving on the eve of Australia’s federal elections. Environmental concerns rank highly among voters, yet the study critiques both major political parties for their underwhelming performance on environmental protection fronts. Despite vocal commitments to “nature positive” agendas, tangible legislative progress has been minimal. In fact, the report highlights a worrying trend wherein key environmental laws were weakened mere days before the onset of the election caretaker period, effectively diluting conservation efforts at a critical political juncture.

Beyond national contexts, the research throws into sharp relief the broader hazards of embracing “nature positive” rhetoric without rigorous accountability or clear benchmarks. Greenwashing, defined as the superficial use of environmentally positive language devoid of substantive action, has emerged as a prominent tactic. The deceptive allure of such rhetoric risks stalling necessary regulatory reforms, delaying the imposition of environmental fees, and providing cover for exploitative land acquisition strategies detrimental to global biodiversity.

Methodologically, the study employs an observational approach, analyzing political texts, policy drafts, corporate reports, and lobbying activities leading up to CBD COP16. This granular analysis reveals how “nature positive” operates more as a strategic governance tool rather than a genuine conservation ethic within sector-scale political ecology. By embedding itself within influential arenas of power, the phrase facilitates political maneuvering that often runs counter to the substantive interests of biodiversity preservation.

An additional layer of complexity arises from the economic scale of the forces involved. The private equity sector’s monumental influence over “Big Tourism” is a key driver of resource extraction and habitat disruption, reflecting broader systemic challenges in aligning profit motives with ecological sustainability. This dynamic underscores the necessity for reforming financial incentives and regulatory frameworks to curb environmentally damaging practices that hide behind “nature positive” branding.

The authors suggest that the path forward demands a recalibration of both language and action. Policymakers, conservationists, and the public must resist complacency driven by superficial slogans and instead demand transparency, measurable outcomes, and enforceable commitments. Without such rigor, the seductive simplicity of “nature positive” will remain a hollow banner, offering political convenience but no substantive progress against the accelerating threats of biodiversity loss.

Importantly, the study serves as a clarion call amid a global conservation landscape at a crossroads. With COP16 being a pivotal moment for international biodiversity governance, the findings highlight the imperative of scrutinizing political ecology at sectoral scales. The tourism industry, emblematic of many resource-intensive sectors, can no longer be treated as an unquestioned ally of nature. Instead, it requires careful governance, aligned incentives, and verifiable contributions to conservation outcomes.

Emeritus Professor Buckley and his colleagues illuminate the stark reality that optimistic environmental narratives must be tethered to accountability. Their work challenges scientists, journalists, and the public to peer beyond the veneer of “nature positive” claims and engage critically with the political and economic structures that shape conservation futures. As the global community grapples with biodiversity crises, these insights underscore the vital importance of marrying rhetoric with reality to achieve genuine ecological resilience.

This groundbreaking study not only reframes the discourse on “nature positive” but also equips policymakers and stakeholders with the conceptual tools necessary to parse rhetoric from reality. It advocates for a political ecology rooted in empirical assessment and robust governance, an approach that transcends sloganism to protect the planet’s biological heritage effectively.

Subject of Research: Political ecology and conservation outcomes related to the term “nature positive” within the tourism sector at the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16).

Article Title: Nature positive rhetoric, risk and reality: sector-scale political ecology at CBDCOP16

News Publication Date: 24-Apr-2025

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Keywords: biodiversity, nature positive, tourism sector, political ecology, greenwashing, conservation policy, private equity, land grabs, environmental legislation, CBD COP16, Australia environment policy