Corporate commitment to biodiversity in mining and forestry: Identifying drivers from GRI reports

Biodiversity conservation is increasingly integrated into the environmental management practices of organizations. Nevertheless, the literature has overlooked the analysis of the general motivations for and the organizational implications underlying corporate commitment to biodiversity. In order to fulfil this gap, the objective of this article is to contribute to this under-researched issue by shedding light on the drivers for biodiversity conservation of mining and forestry companies whose operations pose high risks to biodiversity. For this purpose, a systematic analysis was carried out on more than 4650 passages on biodiversity management extracted from 430 sustainability reports using the framework of the Global Reporting Initiative. Drawing on theories of self-regulation and social exchange, the paper shows that initiatives for biodiversity management are motivated by the quest for social legitimacy and the external recognition of organizations with high environmental impacts.