Annalisa Tonetto

Revise and Resubmit: Journal of Business Ethics

This commentary examines the ethical implications of biodiversity measurement in corporate finance. We argue that the lack of epistemic clarity – the inability to see the specific, spatial consequences of corporate action – is the primary obstacle to ethical biodiversity stewardship. Drawing on the concept of moral decoupling, we contend that this abstraction into simplified
financial risk metrics allows decision-makers to overlook the specific ecological consequences of their value chains. We propose that the next generation of biodiversity metrics must move beyond the financialized aggregation of the nature-as-asset paradigm towards spatial resolution. Using the nSTAR methodology as a case study, we demonstrate how spatially explicit tools can serve as Moral Technologies that restore the link between corporate action and ecological reality. By improving the resolution of measurement, these tools provide the necessary epistemic foundation for genuine stewardship and accountability. We conclude that adopting such highresolution tools is a moral imperative, as they collapse the distance between the boardroom and the biosphere, restoring the capacity for accountability in an age of extinction.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6355060

with A. Balogh, W. Geary, B. Wintle (University of Melbourne), S. Bekessy
(RMIT University), M. Burgman (University of Hawaii), H. Layman (FTSE Russell) and O. Karakaş (University of Cambridge, Judge Business School)