Manu's Memos

Every company depends on Nature somewhere — the trick for a software firm, cake shop or accountancy is that the dependency is diffuse (energy, water, land, supply chains, staff wellbeing) rather than a single taonga species. 

So the mechanisms shifts in this case from “share the equity in the organism” to “give the ecosystems your business depends on a voice in decisions.”

Some options, roughly in ascending order of commitment:

Governance mechanisms

• Add a constitution clause making environmental impact a mandatory board consideration (like the UK’s s172 duty, but with teeth — e.g. requiring directors to record how Nature was weighed in major decisions).
• Appoint a Nature guardian or “future generations” director — someone whose formal mandate is the ecosystems and communities the company affects, not shareholder return. Faith In Nature (UK) and House of Hackney did this with “Nature on the Board” directors.
• Give a local environmental entity — a catchment group, iwi/hapū authority, or land trust — an advisory seat or consent right over decisions touching their rohe (site development, water use, major sourcing changes).

Financial mechanisms

• Issue a small non-dilutable “golden share” to an environmental trust, carrying veto rights over specific decisions (e.g. changing environmental commitments) rather than economic value — this is how steward-ownership models like Patagonia’s Purpose Trust work.
• Commit a fixed percentage of profit or revenue to the ecosystems in your footprint — not as discretionary philanthropy but as a constitutional obligation, treated like a dividend to a shareholder called Nature.
• Price internal carbon, water and land use in project decisions so Nature’s “invoice” appears in the business case, not just the CSR report.

Relational mechanisms

• Map your actual dependencies (TNFD-style): where your energy, data centres, offices, and suppliers sit, and which ecosystems and communities carry that load. Most companies discover they’re far less “nature-light” than they assumed.
• Build a standing relationship with mana whenua where you operate — before you need anything from them. For a services firm, that might simply mean your lease decisions, procurement, and volunteering flow through that relationship.
• Start building connections with other companies, or just other company staff within your own organisation, that are interested in these issues, but not sure quite where to start.
• Read Steve Moe’s short document on the ideas and issues around Nature as Shareholder.