Giving Nature the Right to Vote
In the first days of 2025, we are establishing ReTreats, a small tourism company on the Norwegian coast. This article describes a number of decisions we have made before the company is formally established, and the thinking that led us there.
ReTreats started as a show-don't-tell project. The idea is simple: build in public, share what works, share what doesn't, and be transparent about the choices we make along the way. The project started with many questions. One of the most important has been this:
Who speaks for nature in our decisions, in practice and in the boardroom?
Prolog
I used to have an adventure company back in the days. Norwegian Goosebumps. All our board meetings happened in nature. Usually we were climbing. We manufactured a protocol when we got back home.
(Funfact: I don’t think many companies have ever had more scrapes and twisted ankles in their board meetings than us :)
One of these “meetings” was on a longer trip in Romsdal area. In beautiful surroundings we joked and asked the nature about what to do. If this was a board meeting about doing trips in nature, nature should have a voice in our decisions. Of course we were just joking back then. But still. We were not only joking. There was something serious about it. Our entire business was dependent on the surroundings we operated in. Gradually we started filtering clients and saying no to different things. Like guiding cruise passengers. (It probably influenced us that we were reading Spinoza and Næss while climbing)
The idea of nature as a stakeholder stuck with me. When I mentioned this idea to people, I got funny faces back. I could tell they thought the idea sounded abstract. Of course it did..
The first business book I read as a founder was Let My People Go Surfing. Like many entrepreneurs, I picked it up because of surfing first, then Patagonia. What stayed with me was not the surfing. It was the idea that a company could be designed around something larger than maximizing shareholder value.
That idea has followed me ever since. First with our platform BookNanook, strict rules on local ownership and a clear environmental policy. Travelopment, educating travel businesses in a more sustainable approach and The Transparency Company which is built solely around creating a more transparent and regenerative future for travel. Promote what works, and make it harder to hide what does not. All these projects and others the last 15 years has aimed to strenghten local communities, while minimizing negative impact on nature.
Years later, Patagonia's founder, Yvon Chouinard, transferred ownership of the company to a structure designed to ensure that profits would ultimately serve the planet rather than private shareholders. It became one of the most visible examples of a question that more organisations are now beginning to explore:
If nature is affected by business decisions, should nature somehow be represented when those decisions are made?
But, I still got to hear it.
Giving nature a vote? What kind of hippie would suggest this? (It did not help that I had long hair and long beard. )
It started as a joke for me too. But, the longer I looked at it, the less abstract it became. We’re dependent on nature. Every human being is dependent on nature. Why shouldn’t it be part of the decisions? It should be the first.
Every significant business decision already represents someone. Owners. Customers. Employees. Financial partners. Regulators.
Nature is often/usually affected by those decisions without being represented in them.
When we discuss a new development, a tourism project or an investment, someone around the table will ask whether it makes financial sense. Someone will ask whether customers want it. Someone will ask whether it can be delivered.
But who the f*** asks whether it is good for the place itself?
Who the f*** speaks for the forest, the river, the coastline or the species that will live with the consequences long after the net profit and bottom line has been spent and forgotten.
I cannot understand why this is not default already. I met Sophia, the worlds first robot citizen. If that is possible. Giving nature a vote should be a no brainer. Giving nature a voice is not about stopping development or saying no to every project.
After doing big projects and writing in Transparency I have no doubt. We need to do it.
We should always ask whether development can happen in a way that acknowledges that nature is not just the backdrop to our economic activity. Nature is the foundation.
We need clean water. Healthy soils. Functioning ecosystems. Stable landscapes. Every insect and every mammal or fish or whatever.
Every business ultimately depends on them. Especially, but not only in tourism.
Yet nature is usually invited into the conversation after decisions have been made. through impact assessments, certifications, mitigation plans and sustainability reports. Believe me, I have examined these certificatins deeply. They’re not the solution. Good intentions, I guess, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.. (I have written other articles exploring that btw)
On the other hand, the companies experimenting with these “new” governance models are attempting something different. They are asking whether nature should be represented before the decision is made rather than evaluated afterwards.
Anyway, let’s dig more into this.
Who is the unsung heroes leading the way and doing this already.
To create a movement we need guiding stars. Someone leading the way. But these are hard to find. It seems more companies need to step up.
Ideally countries should make laws demanding putting nature first, but is seems the countries leading on nature rights are not necessary leading on corporate governance. Most people who have followed the rights of nature movement will probably think about countries such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia and New Zealand. And it is easy to think that many companies from these countries are way ahead of the rest of us.
Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognise the rights of nature in its constitution in 2008. Bolivia followed with its Law of Mother Earth. Colombian courts have repeatedly recognised rivers and ecosystems as legal subjects with rights. In New Zealand, both the Whanganui River and Te Urewera have been granted legal personhood and are represented by appointed guardians acting on their behalf.
These developments are important because they challenge one of the foundations of modern law. I am pointing out the idea that nature exists primarily as property. Instead, rivers, forests and ecosystems are increasingly being recognised as entities with interests of their own.
What surprised me was that these developments have rarely been mirrored inside the local companies. The countries that have gone furthest in recognising nature as a legal subject are not necessarily the countries where businesses have experimented most with representing nature in governance.
New Zealand is a particularly interesting example. Many Indigenous Māori traditions are built around the concept of kaitiakitanga, best translated as a kind of stewardship and guardianship of the natural world. The concept circles around an understanding that people are not separate from the ecosystems they depend upon. Rivers, forests and landscapes are not merely resources. They are relationships that create obligations across generations.
This perspective has profoundly influenced New Zealand's legal development. Yet despite these advances, there are still very few examples of companies formally giving nature a voice inside the boardroom or decision making systems. (Maybe because practice are more important than words on paper?? More on that later.)
Australia presents a similar picture. On a lecture in SDG academy I learned that there, some of the country's most influential legal opinions have argued that directors may have a duty to consider nature-related risks in the same way they consider climate-related risks. This is important progress, but it remains fundamentally a discussion about risk management rather than representation of nature. .
The same pattern appears in South America. The region that gave birth to many of the world's most influential rights of nature initiatives has produced remarkably few examples of companies incorporating nature directly into governance structures.
This creates an interesting paradox. Governments and courts are increasingly willing to recognise nature as a rights-bearing entity. Companies, for the most part, are still trying to decide what that means in practice.
PS: Even though many of these countries have surprisingly few companies takeing the formal steps, they are not alone. This is the case most places. I just had higher expenctations for these.
This is an old idea dressed in modern clothes
One of the more interesting discoveries during my research was that the underlying idea is much older than the companies currently experimenting with it.
Maybe not surprising. But still eye-opening.
My mother-in-law grew up in a Lule Sami community and followed the reindeer herds in the mountains. Over the years she has told me many stories about how they learned to think about nature first. If you take something from nature one year, you don't necessarily return to the same place the next. For example, she learned that if they harvested bark from a birch tree one year, they would wait ten years before taking from the same tree again. Stewardship was simply how you lived.
As my wife and children are partly of Sami origin, I have become increasingly interested in indigenous traditions and, more broadly, in how Indigenous cultures have approached the relationship between people and nature. ( I have to mention that I was quite nerdy as a kid and applied for a norwegian game show - (Kvitt eller dobbelt) when I was 8, in the topic indian tribes in North and South america, so probably a bit above average interested already. Did not pass the test though)
Anyway. Many Indigenous cultures have long, like forever, operated with governance traditions that place responsibilities towards land, water and future generations at the centre of their decision making.
Whether it is kaitiakitanga in Aotearoa New Zealand, the concept of considering future generations found in many Indigenous North American traditions, or the influence of ideas such as Buen Vivir in parts of South America, the red thread is remarkably easy to spot. And it can be described like this ish.
Decisions should account for those who are not physically present in the room: future generations, local communities and the ecosystems that make life possible.
So, what is happening today in parts of the business world can therefore be viewed in two ways.. Some companies are innovative. Companies are experimenting with governance structures that barely existed a decade ago.
But, on the other hand, they may simply be translating much older ideas into the language of modern organisations. You can not really invent a new relationship with nature. The challenge is rather adapting old wisdom to institutions that were largely designed for other purposes.
The basic idea that nature and future generations deserve representation in human decisions is not new in the modern intellectual world either.
It seems Christopher Stone asked the question first, in a law review article in 1972: He asked: Should trees have standing? His answer was yes, and he proposed guardians, appointed humans whose job was to speak for interests that had no other voice.
Arne Næss sharpened or fine tuned the underlying philosophy a year later, arguing that nature does not have value because it is useful to us. It has value regardless. Hans Jonas added the dimension of time. Writing in 1979, he argued that our decisions now carry obligations towards generations who cannot yet speak for themselves, and that our institutions were not designed to reckon with that. So, three philosophers decades had the same unanswered question for decades.
But who follow up their thougts? Who wants to bring the answer to the table?
A small number of companies are taking the next step
When looking specifically at corporate governance, the list of companies actively experimenting with nature representation is surprisingly short. At least what I have found.
The most used example is Faith in Nature. In 2022, this British personal care company amended its governance structure and appointed a representative for nature to its board. This move attracted international attention because it shifted the conversation from sustainability reporting to governance itself. Rather than asking how nature should be considered, the company asked whether nature should have representation when decisions are made.
House of Hackney has pursued a similar path. The British interiors company publicly committed to giving nature a formal voice within its governance structure as part of its transition towards a regenerative business model.
Other purpose-driven brands have expressed interest in similar ideas. The Swedish/French company Beauty Disrupted, for example, has built its brand around ecological restoration and environmental giving, illustrating how the conversation about nature's role in business is spreading beyond the small number of companies that have formally changed their governance.
What these organisations have in common is not necessarily a specific legal structure. It is a willingness to question who gets represented when important decisions are made.
Interestingly, even among the companies experimenting with direct representation, the structures differ. Some appoint an individual representative. Others use external guardians. Some rely on councils or committees. The field is still young enough that there is no accepted model.
Some nordic companies are approaching the challenge differently
Rules and laws are different from region to region. This affects how companies move forward. In the Nordic region, the most interesting examples often focus less on direct representation and more on ownership, purpose and governance principles.
Icebug is perhaps the clearest example. At least with some form of documentation. In 2019 the Swedish footwear company stated in its owner directive that nature and society are primary stakeholders while shareholders are secondary. That may sound like a subtle distinction, but it fundamentally changes the hierarchy of interests that directors are expected to consider when difficult trade-offs arise.
In Denmark, engineering company Søren Jensen has incorporated environmental responsibility directly into its articles of association. Rather than relying solely on the priorities of current leaders, ecological considerations are embedded in the governing framework of the company itself. Also in 2019-
Other Danish organisations have approached the question from different directions.
Planetary Impact Ventures has explored how scientific and planetary perspectives can play a stronger role in investment decisions. Founded explicitly to change how venture capital operates, they structured their evergreen funding models and non-traditional investment frameworks at inception in the seemingly magic year of 2019 to eliminate exit pressures and prioritize the planet. They further expanded these planetary perspective disclosures and funding frameworks formally between 2022 and 2023.
Sinatur Hotel & Konference has according to Nille Skats both internally and publicly discussed how nature's interests might be reflected in decisions affecting the landscapes where the company operates. Many smaller brands have signalled interest in giving greater consideration to future generations and the natural world in how companies are governed, even where such ideas have not been formalised through board representation. Seemingly.
Wehlers, founded in 2017, has built its furniture business around circular material flows and resource constraints, demonstrating how ecological boundaries can shape strategy rather than simply constrain it. Aarstiderne has since 1999 spent time and effort showing how biodiversity, soil health and regenerative agriculture can become part of a company's operating philosophy rather than a separate sustainability programme.
What becomes clear after studying these examples is that there is no emerging standard. Some organisations change ownership structures. Others rewrite governing documents. Some create advisory boards. A few have actually experimented with direct representation inside the boardroom.
The field remains highly fragmented. That may actually be a strength. It suggests organisations are still exploring rather than converging on a single template.
Why this matters for tourism
Tourism may be one of the sectors where this discussion matters most. At least more visible and more intergrated in the core.
Tourism businesses depend on places they do not own. A hotel depends on a coastline and the surrounding nature. A hiking company depends on a mountain, on tracks and clean air.. A retreat depends on a landscape. A destination depends on ecosystems that often took centuries to become what they are. And the local communities.
Yet most tourism boardrooms are structured like any other business. Revenue is represented. Costs are represented. Investors are represented.
But, unfortunately, the place itself rarely is. And, that creates a difficult tension. Many tourism businesses genuinely care about the places where they operate. At the same time, they face pressure to increase occupancy, extend seasons, grow visitor numbers and improve profitability. Those goals are not necessarily incompatible with ecological stewardship. But they are not always aligned either. I would personally say they are usually not.
A destination can become successful because it feels remote and uncrowded. The very success of that destination can then place pressure on the qualities that made it attractive in the first place. A coastal community may welcome tourism revenue while simultaneously experiencing rising housing costs, congestion or pressure on local infrastructure.
A landscape may generate economic value for decades while gradually losing the ecological characteristics visitors originally came to experience. These are not necessarily failures. But they are definitely governance challenges.
The conversation changes when somebody in the room is explicitly responsible for asking how a decision affects the landscape, the ecosystem and the local community over the long term. Agree?
So. With this background:
What have we decided to do?
As we prepare to establish ReTreats in the coming weeks, we have spent considerable time studying these different approaches.
We have looked at legal frameworks. We have looked at ownership models. We have looked at advisory councils. We have looked at companies that have experimented with direct representation.
After studying the different approaches, we kept returning to the same observation: the interests of nature and local communities are often affected by decisions without being directly represented when those decisions are made.
When ReTreats establishes its first ordinary board, we intend to introduce a formal Nature Seat role, a designated position whose job is to challenge decisions through that same lens. But the tool itself is already in use before that. From the day the company is founded, every significant decision is assessed through a structured framework asking what happens to nature, the place, the local community and future generations. Not afterwards. Before.
Actually, Nature Seat is already in use, as we run the concept ahead of the new company.
One person cannot truly speak for nature. Nobody can. But someone should be responsible for asking questions that otherwise risk being forgotten.
What happens to this place if we succeed? What happens if we grow faster than planned? Can the impact of a decision be reversed? Will local communities be better off because we were here? Is there a less intrusive alternative?
In many organisations, those questions belong to everyone. Which often means they belong to no one. If no one has a clear job, aka to represent nature. Probably no one will.
We also want local communities to have a stake. One concrete thing is that we intend, from day one, to invite local communities in as co-owners. Not later. From the start. At once we are registered as a legal entity. Spread power and values.
ReTreats began as a show-don't-tell project. That principle extends to governance. And to transparency. We intend to be the most transparent company in the world. Not only in travel and tourism. Just open with everything.
End notes?
The most surprising thing I discovered during this research was not how many companies are doing this. It was how few. I did expect it to be hundreds. It wasn’t.
Despite decades of sustainability reporting and growing awareness of biodiversity loss, very few businesses have experimented with giving nature a formal voice in governance.That makes this a young field. Perhaps uncomfortably young.
Yet the direction of travel seems clear. Governments are beginning to recognise the rights of nature. Courts are beginning to recognise the rights of nature. Investors are beginning to ask questions about nature-related risks.
The next frontier may be governance itself.
ReTreats continue the journey, and we hope to contribute a small and honest experiment to that conversation. We do not pretend in any way to have found the answer. But we do believe the question is worth asking.
If nature is affected by our decisions, shouldn't it have a seat in the room when those decisions are made? The practice is most important, but we are 100% sure that this will add value.