Ivey Business School, Canada

Creating and Capturing Value from Nature: Exploring the Valuation Processes of a Nature-Based Financial Instrument

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ABSTRACT

This paper explores how organizations value nature and how this influences an organization’s decisions to pursue sustainability projects targeting nature regeneration. Through an inductive qualitative analysis of a project to create a nature-based financial instrument, this paper will present a multi-level process framework describing how organizations organize to create and capture value from nature regeneration. This article explains why, despite best intentions, actors organizing to create a novel financial instrument could not make the economics of it work. This paper extends value creation and appropriation literature in strategy by exploring value within the context of ecological systems and integrating the multi-level valuation dynamics of nature. These findings will help advance sustainable finance by exploring the supply-side barriers to nature-based financial instruments.

BIOGRAPHY

Michelina Aguanno is a Ph.D. Candidate at Ivey Business School (Western University). She also holds an HBA from Ivey Business School and is an Ivey Sustainability Certificate Program alumna. Michelina’s research is at the intersection of strategic management and sustainability. Through her research, she explores how firms integrate environmental sustainability into their strategic frameworks and pursue projects to advance sustainability. She tackles these questions through a valuation lens and by applying principles of systems thinking. Empirically, Michelina uses qualitative research methods and an engaged scholarship approach. Her current research projects explore these topics in the context of financial innovation projects to advance regenerative agriculture.