Building a robust legal architecture to prevent corporate harms to nature

12/12/2025

By Seema Joshi, Legal Director, Accountability Accelerator and Mariana Cascardo Michael, Grants and Program Manager, Accountability Accelerator

Companies are a significant contributor to the triple planetary crisis that humanity is currently facing: a rapidly warming planet, pollution and biodiversity loss. At the same time, Indigenous Peoples and local communities continue to be negatively impacted by irresponsible business conduct, often left without the ability to obtain justice for the harms faced. 

Strengthening legal strategies and accountability systems is urgent and essential to address harms caused by irresponsible business conduct. Current geopolitical realities underscore the urgent need for new thinking, legal strategising and investment in systemic efforts to prevent harm and obtain justice. 

Since May 2025, the Accountability Accelerator has been mapping legal approaches at the intersection of corporate accountability, law and nature. We have gathered insights from actors around the world with the overarching goal of strengthening the ‘legal accountability ecosystem’ so that corporate harms to nature are reduced and justice is upheld. 

On 3 December, we hosted a webinar sharing key takeaways from this process and exploring opportunities to advance tangible legal actions. The Accelerator presented findings from 102 respondents across 92 organizations located globally on priorities, tactics, approaches, gaps and successes within the legal, corporate, and nature accountability ecosystem. A topline summary of findings is included below, and we will be publishing the full results of the questionnaire in early 2026. 

During the webinar we also heard from an impressive line-up of practitioners working at the intersection of corporate accountability, climate, justice and community rights. 

The session highlighted impact and success areas, as well as the urgent need for strengthening meaningful action that reduces corporate harms to nature and enables clean-up and justice for affected communities. Practitioners provided targeted and valuable perspectives which will inform our next steps as we move forward to building an effective legal ecosystem aimed at maximising impact through systems change. 

From the webinar, we came away with a stronger confirmation of the legal priorities, gaps, approaches, tools and frameworks of legal stakeholders on issues intersecting with corporate accountability and natural ecosystems.

We also established a better understanding of opportunities for the legal mapping findings to be advanced and optimised by legal practitioners working at the local level globally.

Read on for key findings from the legal mapping process and perspectives from our Firestarter panellists, and re-watch the webinar recording here.

Legal mapping findings

The Accountability Accelerator used a questionnaire to obtain perspectives from three target groups within the legal ecosystem including: Implementers, Funders and Regranters (Respondents). We asked all Respondents five overlapping questions, while also posing additional questions particularly to those seeking funding support and directly working to improve corporate accountability and justice within the legal ecosystem.

In analysing the data and generating findings, we identified categories that received high response rates within and across respondent groups, as well as categories that received low response rates. We took into consideration options added by respondents and long-form responses.  

Represented by a response rate above 50% across all three groups, Respondents showed strong alignment for two priority work areas: land ecosystems and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, but highlighted weaker alignment across prioritization areas such as toxics, supply chain focused work, and air pollution. 

Responses across the three targeted groups also suggested that oceans are currently being under-prioritised (with less than a 50% response rate across all of them). Similarly, all three Respondent groups strongly agreed (over 50% across all) on the need to strengthen national regulations and regional frameworks in their work.

However, in contrast to Implementers, Funder responses did not convey a high level of support for soft-law standards and approaches, including the UN Guiding Principles, OECD, and/or non-grievance mechanisms. This caused the team to query if the value of these standards in furthering efforts of Indigenous Peoples and affected communities to obtain an adequate remedy for corporate harms, are not well-understood by Funders and as a result are being overlooked. 

Key gaps delaying progress include weak enforcement of existing laws, insufficient funding, limited local-level power, and structural barriers such as corruption. While legal cases and improved access to justice were seen as indicators of success, little evidence emerged from the responses signalling that communities are obtaining justice in the form of environmental cleanup, corporate apologies and/or guarantees of non-repetition, and even compensation.

“…funders supporting the energy transition often do not understand the importance of local community engagement and empowerment”

“Local community knowledge and capabilities are underestimated”

Perspectives from the Firestarters

The goal of the Firestarter panel was to see if reflections and findings emerging from the questionnaires resonated with legal practitioners who work closely with these issues on a daily basis. 

Our Firestarters panel brought together six experienced legal practitioners working in different regions of the world, to advance corporate accountability, community rights, and environmental justice. Each speaker shared their perspectives on findings emerging from the legal mapping process, grounded in their practical experiences.

• Kate Finn, Founder & Executive Director, Tallgrass Institute, emphasized that while Indigenous Peoples are widely recognized as essential stewards of land and climate, they still receive less than 1% of relevant funding. She called for long-term investment, capacity building, and “smart mix” strategies bridging policy reform, legal support, and investor engagement.
• Mariam Faruqi, CEO, iProbono, highlighted the severe underfunding of air-pollution work in South Asia despite its devastating health impacts. She stressed the need for robust data, regional collaboration, and community-led legal action.
• Anahita Yousefi, Executive Director, Harvest, underscored implementers’ broad, pragmatic use of legal and soft-law tools, advocating for better coordination across climate, nature, and human rights strategies.
• Guillermo Torres, Transnational Justice Coordination, ProDESC, warned against overlooking mechanisms like the OECD Guidelines, which can shift power imbalances and open pathways where domestic law is weak.
• Megan Clay, Accountable Finance Lead, ClientEarth,  pointed to powerful opportunities within financial accountability—especially around harmful subsidies and investor responsibilities.
• Emmanuel UMPULA, Executive Director, African Resources Watch – AFREWATCH,  closed with a stark reminder that without stronger governance, resourcing, and scientific evidence, communities on the frontlines of extractive harms cannot access justice or environmental cleanup.

What’s next?

The Accountability Accelerator uses tactics and approaches that drive and incentivise companies to act accountably for people and the planet.

In early 2026, the Accountability Accelerator will publish the Legal Mapping findings, data and recommendations relating to next steps. The team will focus on advancing impactful actions and will be convening a number of discussions, including webinars, as to how these will be advanced in practice. 

If you would like to provide input on next steps, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at mari@accountabilityaccelerator.org or seema@accountabilityaccelerator.org.