So how exactly does Nature serve as a director of a company?
When I first called Earth Law Center and Lawyers For Nature – asking whether Nature could be the CEO of Faith In Nature – I had a hunch it might lead to an interesting answer, but no real understanding of the mechanics necessary to make it real.
Apart from a belief that Nature should have a say on the decisions that impact it, all I really knew was that some parts of the natural world – mostly rivers, it seemed – had recently been recognised as legal persons. Through environmental personhood, these rivers, mountains, ecosystems etc had gained legal rights and a ‘say’ (of sorts) on their treatment. The ‘poster river’ of the stories emerging was the river Whanganui in New Zealand. By being recognised as a legal person, it became able to protect its own best interests. So if, for example, a company polluted the Whanganui, then the Whanganui could sue said polluting company. (Finally! Something approaching justice…)
So taking this on face value, I figured if Nature could become a legal person – and in so doing make decisions in its own best interests – why couldn’t it also make decisions on behalf of a company that itself was trying to act in the interests of the natural world?
As we now know, the answer is that it can. Here’s how…
The first piece of the puzzle to understand is the ‘guardian model’ that underpins a lot of the environmental personhood work. It’s much like the system in place that allows responsible adults to represent children in court because a child cannot represent themselves. This doesn’t mean the adult themselves is the subject of the case; merely that they are giving voice to the best interests of the child.
There is a certain poignancy, I think, to this analogy – because it speaks to the vulnerability of the natural world not being able to speak for itself. And yet, in truth, Nature does speak for itself every single day. It screams and wails and whimpers as it burns and floods and dies. But we remain wilfully deaf to its voice, insisting that if it is to be heard, it must speak our human language, in our human system. Through us, as its guardians, it can.
In each case, guardians must be put in place to speak for those environmental persons – which, of course, has its challenges – but it is accepted that these guardians should be credible, compassionate environmentalists who are willing to get out of their own way to speak not as themselves, but as Nature. The guardian can be an individual, an individual speaking on behalf of a group, a whole group of guardians, a chaired committee or any number of configurations that work for the challenge in question. (The Whanganui river, for example, is represented by two guardians – one from the crown and one from the traditional custodians of the river – the Whanganui people.)
The second part of the puzzle is to understand the difference between anthropocentric and ecocentric thinking. Anthropocentrism is the view that we, humans, are centre of the universe and that everything should pass through our human-first lens. So anthropocentric thinking puts the interest of the human first. Ecocentric thinking, on the other hand, puts the interests of Nature first. In many cases, it will also lead to the benefit of the human because we too are part of Nature – but it is fundamentally not about us as a species, but US as a whole.
So when a guardian represents the natural world, they are pulling on an ecocentric hat and speaking not as themselves – or even necessarily in the interest of the human – but in the interest of Nature. And because we are dealing with an ecocentric view, the guardian could theoretically be any being or species from within the natural world – a bear, a crow, a snake etc… – but the species best suited to the job is, of course, us humans. (Especially as the systems within which these guardians must work have been designed by humans, for humans.)
The third part of the puzzle relies upon understanding the duties of a company director – and for this part, in particular, I take my ecocentric hat off to the brilliant Brontie Ansell of Lawyers For Nature who figured this bit out. Key to unlocking it is to scrutinise how we define the term ‘success’ – as within UK law, a director’s sole duty is to work towards the success of the company. Historically, success has typically meant ‘profit’. Increasingly it is coming to be measured in other ways (people, planet, profit). But fundamental to a company’s success, of course, is having a healthy, thriving planet upon which to operate. So Nature, as a director, can absolutely speak in the interest of the natural world without a conflict of interest arising with its fiduciary duties.
Here, by the way, is where it was decided that while Nature can comply with the duties of a director, it cannot (yet!) work as a CEO within the UK’s legal system. And, in any case, we realised at this point that it was far more powerful to appoint Nature as a director than as a CEO because it is so much more replicable. Even if Faith In Nature were to make Nature the CEO, how many other companies would follow suit? Whereas the seemingly softer approach of appointing Nature as a director actually carries much more weight because it’s a much more manageable step for many more companies.
So it is really in putting these parts of the puzzle together (and a lot more legal detail from Brontie et al) that we arrive at Faith In Nature’s working model for Nature On The Board.
Legally (as noted in Faith In Nature’s articles) it is Nature itself that is a director of Faith In Nature. Acting on its behalf are a number of Nature ‘guardians’. One is Brontie Ansell of Lawyers For Nature (who wrote much of the framework) and we are about to appoint a second to accompany her. But remember: these guardians are ‘only’ the mouthpieces. Neither they as individuals nor their organisations are directors of the company. They can both call on as wide a cast of environmentalists as necessary in order to make the best, most informed, decisions possible. Likewise, they can be joined – or replaced – by any number of other guardians who will advocate for Nature. And these could be literally anyone capable of acting as a guardian as described above. From First Nations people to esteemed environmentalists to scientists, children or even poets* – all can contribute their wisdom through this model. Together, these guardians act as one director – with a say on all Nature related matters, and a vote.
And while this vote is not a casting vote, it does show all other directors how Nature would vote – so no director can be wilfully blind to the impact of their own vote, should they choose to vote a different way. With this model in place, we cannot be wilfully deaf to Nature’s voice.
*Briefly, on poetry – its poetic, don’t you think, that it was largely rivers that carved through the rock of our legal system to make so much of this work possible?
