Scientific mobilization of keystone actors for biosphere stewardship

Abstract

The biosphere crisis requires changes to existing business practices. We ask how corporations can become sustainability leaders, when constrained by multiple barriers to collaboration for biosphere stewardship. We describe how scientists motivated, inspired and engaged with ten of the world’s largest seafood companies, in a collaborative process aimed to enable science-based and systemic transformations (2015–2021). CEOs faced multiple industry crises in 2015 that incentivized novel approaches. New scientific insights, an invitation to collaborate, and a bold vision of transformative change towards ocean stewardship, created new opportunities and direction. Co-creation of solutions resulted in new knowledge and trust, a joint agenda for action, new capacities, international recognition, formalization of an organization, increased policy influence, time-bound goals, and convergence of corporate change. Independently funded scientists helped remove barriers to cooperation, provided means for reflection, and guided corporate strategies and actions toward ocean stewardship. By 2021, multiple individuals exercised leadership and the initiative had transitioned from preliminary and uncomfortable conversations, to a dynamic, operational organization, with capacity to perform global leadership in the seafood industry. Mobilizing transformational agency through learning, collaboration, and innovation represents a cultural evolution with potential to redirect and accelerate corporate action, to the benefit of business, people and the planet.

New boundaries for sustainability accounting? A case study of multi-entity accounting and reporting in the agrifood sector

“…, 2021; Österblom et al. , 2022a, b). The authors document the development of the Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS) initiative, a coalition of the world's largest seafood companies.…”

“…Their work highlights the difficulty of tracing environmental impacts to individual actors in a sector (Bebbington et al. , 2019) and corporations' reluctance to agree to science-based goals and to be held individually accountable (Österblom et al. , 2022b).…”

Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis

“…seabos.org). Initiatives such as SeaBOS illustrate how scientists can play an active role in facilitating the formation of such groups [159,160].…”

Business accountability in the Anthropocene

“…It is estimated that the industrial and commercial sectors account for over 60% of total energy use worldwide (EIA, 2021); the agriculture sector is responsible for 92% of global water consumption (Hoekstra & Mekonnen, 2012); and 13 corporations control 19%–40% of the most valuable fish stocks (Österblom et al, 2015). Businesses have thus been identified as ‘keystone actors’ for reducing fossil fuel use (Stern et al, 2016), promoting global water security (Sojamo & Archer Larson, 2012), and managing sustainable marine ecosystems and biospheres (Österblom et al, 2022).…”