From Shared Diagnosis To Stronger Strategy

Legal strategies to strengthen corporate action for nature

Nature is rapidly becoming a legal and governance issue for business. But the ecosystem engaged in legal work to hold companies accountable for nature harms remains fragmented and under-resourced.

Our new research identifies where this ecosystem is making progress, where the gaps remain, and how funders can help strengthen its impact.

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We asked funders, re-granters, NGOs, activists, and legal practitioners: what are you prioritising, where are you seeing impact, and what’s getting in the way?

Methodology

organisations surveyed

responses from implementers, funders & re-granters

countries represented

workshop discussions & public webinar

Key Findings

1. Clear opportunities for advancing legal strategies for nature

Clear opportunities for advancing legal strategies emerged, characterized by strong consensus among the stakeholder groups surveyed. The most commonly identified opportunity areas were land-related issues and Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

This level of convergence reflects recognition that efforts to address corporate harms to nature cannot be separated from questions of land governance, Indigenous Rights, stewardship, and justice.

2. Blind spots and weaker consensus in critical areas

The responses showed blind spots and weaker consensus around the importance of advancing some critical areas, suggesting that additional awareness-raising and consensus-building is required.

Oceans was selected as a priority by fewer than 50% of respondents across stakeholder groups, despite the importance of addressing marine biodiversity loss, and the opportunity created by the High Seas Treaty. Just transition showed a sharp split in levels of prioritization between respondent groups, with much higher prioritization among re-granters and implementers than among funders.

3. Lack of enforcement of existing laws – a significant barrier

Implementers and re-granters working in the field said the gap most slowing their progress was lack of enforcement of existing laws. A notable gap emerged when respondents looked at how success is measured, with markers associated with remedy as defined by international law largely uncited. Support needed to build power at the local level also stood out as a gap, particularly among re-granters.

4. A clear funding gap exists

The results point to a clear funding gap. Re-granters and implementers agreed that Indigenous People and communities in specific geographies need more funding support to push for stronger legal accountability for companies on nature. The responses point to a disconnect between funders and frontline needs as the primary reason for the funding gap.

5. Funders prioritise hard-law approaches, while implementers favour a broader mix

The most commonly cited legal and policy frameworks that stakeholders are seeking to strengthen are national regulatory approaches and regional courts and frameworks. Funders prioritized these two categories most clearly, with lower response rates for soft-law or other “non-legal” legal approaches – raising the question of whether Funders are underestimating the challenges for local actors in accessing justice, and undervaluing soft-law approaches.

Implementers favoured a broader mix, including climate laws, civil approaches, UN Guiding Principles, constitutional frameworks, UN mechanisms, and OECD-related approaches.

6. Progress needed around legal remedy, compensation and apology

While implementers are seeing progress around legal cases and affected communities accessing justice, the results revealed that in the majority of areas – including legal remedy and compensation, as well as apology provided to affected people – there is still significant work to be done.

Our conclusion: the legal ecosystem working to protect nature is active and experienced, but fragmented, underfunded and not yet translating progress into justice for the people and places that need it most.

Explore the data

Open-answer submissions by questionnaire respondents, when asked: “If you see a funding gap, why do you think it exists?”

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Lack of access to funders; inability to connect local problems with transnational legal tools; lack of access to data; inability to effectively aggregate, analyze, and interpret available data. Many NGOs seem to be either very local in focus or very international, and it can be hard to connect the two, unless there is an NGO straddling both worlds…”

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Less than 1 to 5 % of finance reaches Indigenous Peoples directly. There is not a big pot to begin with, and existing means are channeled or applied via Governments and big NGOs. What we see is that due to lack of data, funders and other actors prioritise techno fixes (e.g. GHG emission reductions) instead of a strong rights-based approach and systemic change.”

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The focus on climate has, to a large extent, been siloed, ignoring the critical interlinkages between climate change and biodiversity. There is a need for increased focus on biodiversity-specific funding, including funding work that seeks to hold corporate accountable for their impacts on biodiversity…”

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We have agreement on the problems. Now we need action on strategies.

Next steps

The legal ecosystem working to protect nature is active, experienced, and already achieving impact. But fragmentation, weak enforcement, and uneven funding are holding it back.

We identified five opportunity areas for urgent action:

1. Enforcement of existing legal frameworks and remedy

The problem: Existing laws are not being adequately enforced, and there is weak evidence that required elements of remedy are being met.

What’s needed: Investment in accountability and enforcement mechanisms; resourcing of accountability pathways; and making securing adequate remedy an overarching goal.

2. Expansion of funding and priorities

The problem: Financing for long-term legal strategies is insufficient and unpredictable, and competition for funding is high.

What’s needed: Increase in multi-year, flexible funding for community-focused legal approaches; investment in areas of clear alignment — land impacts, Indigenous Peoples, evidence collection, local-to-global connections; and improved landscape mapping, collaboration, and follow-through.

3. Rule of law and institutional integrity

The problem: Corporate capture, power imbalances, corruption, and weak oversight are undermining legal gains before they can take effect.

What’s needed: Prioritisation of deterrence measures; strengthening of regulators and institutional actors; funding of investigations; and strengthening of safeguards and transparency mechanisms.

4. Ecosystem orchestration

The problem: There is misalignment between stakeholders in key areas, as well as unexplained gaps, delayed action, and poor understanding of who the players are and what constrains them.

What’s needed: Investment in coordination and network building; addressing blind spots — oceans in particular; improved funder awareness; and integration (rather than siloing) of corporate accountability approaches.

5. Evidence and networks

The problem: Creating evidence, attributing harm to specific companies, accessing information, and coordinating across networks remains inconsistent.

What’s needed: Scaling up evidence collection; building community databases; removing barriers to information; and deepening knowledge-sharing and cross-border legal networks.