2. Power in concentration

One central tenet of the corporate biosphere stewardship research program is that major players in various sectors increasingly recognize the importance of healthy ecosystems in maintaining and advancing their earnings. For example, as stated by the signatories of the ‘1st Keystone Dialogue’ of the SeaBOS initiative: ‘We [seafood corporations] know better than anyone that the seafood industry depends on sustainable use of the ocean for long-term value creation’ (SeaBOS, 2015). Researchers have also pointed to the significance of ‘reputational risk management’ and the ‘mindsets and values’ of corporate leaders (Folke et al., Reference Folke, Österblom, Jouffray, Lambin, Adger, Scheffer, Crona, Nyström, Levin, Carpenter, Anderies, Chapin, Crépin, Dauriach, Galaz, Gordon, Kautsky, Walker, Watson and de Zeeuw2019; Virdin et al., Reference Virdin, Vegh, Jouffray, Blasiak, Mason, Österblom, Vermeer, Wachtmeister and Werner2021).

A second tenet of the approach is that industry concentration offers opportunities for more efficient environmental governance, which researchers should not be too comfortable or prejudiced to pass up (Österblom, Reference Österblom2017; Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Cvitanovic, van Putten, Addison, Blasiak, Jouffray, Bebbington, Hall, Ison, LeBris, Mynott, Reid and Sugimoto2020). With a small number of companies having a ‘disproportionate ability’ to guide a sector, it is pragmatic for scientists to work with them in tandem (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Jouffray, Folke, Crona, Troell, Merrie and Rockström2015). Small- and medium-sized enterprises are not sufficiently global in their reach and tend to be linked to, and operate within, the purview of the larger corporate actors (Folke et al., Reference Folke, Österblom, Jouffray, Lambin, Adger, Scheffer, Crona, Nyström, Levin, Carpenter, Anderies, Chapin, Crépin, Dauriach, Galaz, Gordon, Kautsky, Walker, Watson and de Zeeuw2020; Hileman, Kallstenius, Häyhä, Palm, & Cornell, Reference Hileman, Kallstenius, Häyhä, Palm and Cornell2020). Corporations that dominate a sector, and also potential finance capital that invests therein, provide openings for strategic ‘leverage points’ for sustainable management, since ‘a relatively small shift in their practices has the capacity to lead to fundamental changes in the system’ (Jouffray et al., Reference Jouffray, Crona, Wassénius, Bebbington and Scholtens2019). Through formal participation in sustainability initiatives, keystone actors are in a ‘unique position’ to ‘foster greater accountability’ and ‘fostering greater equity’ (Blasiak et al., Reference Blasiak, Jouffray, Wabnitz, Sundström and Österblom2018). Their leadership could bring about ‘cascading effects… and enable a critical transition towards improved management of… ecosystems’ (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Jouffray, Folke, Crona, Troell, Merrie and Rockström2015).

Corporate biosphere stewardship researchers recognize the program's close similarity to well-known corporate social responsibility (CSR) models, but suggest that interaction with sustainability scientists and coproducing knowledge provides an important new orientation with great promise. CSR approaches are often met with skepticism among social scientists (Málovics, Csigéné, & Kraus, Reference Málovics, Csigéné and Kraus2008). Generally, this skepticism is not due to simplifying corporations as inherently ‘bad’ actors, but results from the perspective that corporations and their leaders are bound and constrained by imperatives and rationalities that often systematically conflict with sustainability and equity goals (Banerjee, Reference Banerjee2008; Málovics et al., Reference Málovics, Csigéné and Kraus2008). Indeed, even industry insiders have expressed wariness regarding the efficacy of corporate environmental governance (Fancy, Reference Fancy2021).

There is acknowledgment among advocates of the program that ‘Market concentration and corporate power are often regarded as roadblocks to social progress given the business priority of economic profit over non-market values’ (Folke et al., Reference Folke, Österblom, Jouffray, Lambin, Adger, Scheffer, Crona, Nyström, Levin, Carpenter, Anderies, Chapin, Crépin, Dauriach, Galaz, Gordon, Kautsky, Walker, Watson and de Zeeuw2019). Thus, environmental risks and inequalities associated with corporate sectoral concentration are correctly recognized (Folke et al., Reference Folke, Österblom, Jouffray, Lambin, Adger, Scheffer, Crona, Nyström, Levin, Carpenter, Anderies, Chapin, Crépin, Dauriach, Galaz, Gordon, Kautsky, Walker, Watson and de Zeeuw2019; Virdin et al., Reference Virdin, Vegh, Jouffray, Blasiak, Mason, Österblom, Vermeer, Wachtmeister and Werner2021). However, there is little within the analyses developed by the research program to suggest that these fundamental problems are fully appreciated, as they are not thoroughly interrogated. Therefore, a central conclusion within the research program is that these risks can be largely overcome by harnessing the power of large enterprises through more science–business initiatives. A genuine recognition of these matters would more directly address the existing critical concerns around this and other CSR-type approaches, which can raise serious doubts regarding corporate stakeholder collaboration as an entry point of transformative sustainability research. Instead, skepticism regarding the role of corporations in sustainability transformations are, in the end, set aside as ‘stereotypes that abound in science […] that industry is bad’ (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Cvitanovic, van Putten, Addison, Blasiak, Jouffray, Bebbington, Hall, Ison, LeBris, Mynott, Reid and Sugimoto2020).

A key point in our examination of the corporate biosphere stewardship research program is that the approach is built on a misreading of how political-economic power structures tend to work. As other scholars have noted, ‘Concentration of power and resources (particularly economic wealth) in the hands of a few facilitates them polluting and degrading the environment with impunity, exacerbating inequity, influencing economies and regulations in their favour’ (Leach et al., Reference Leach, Reyers, Bai, Brondizio, Cook, Díaz, Espindola, Scobie, Stafford-Smith and Subramanian2018). Concentration and consolidation in industries has been shown to be a factor driving socioecological problems (Havice & Campling, Reference Havice and Campling2017; Longo, Isgren, & Clark, Reference Longo, Isgren and Clark2021a). It is simply not the case that corporations have it in their inherent interests to sustain ecological conditions for the common good. This, again, is recognized within the research program, yet it does not effectively inform the approach (Schneider et al., Reference Schneider, Hinton, Collste, González, Cortes-Calderon and Aguiar2020). As stated, private corporations' primary impetus is to make profits and accumulate capital, rather than to produce social values, such as biodiversity – and the two frequently clash (Hinton, Reference Hinton2020; Leach et al., Reference Leach, Reyers, Bai, Brondizio, Cook, Díaz, Espindola, Scobie, Stafford-Smith and Subramanian2018; Longo, Clark, Shriver, & Clausen, Reference Longo, Clark, Shriver and Clausen2016). For example, large corporate seafood enterprises are motivated to maintain the most economically marketable species, not necessarily an array of species; just as large timber companies seek to maximize timber volume of marketable tree species, not diverse forest ecosystems (Foster, Clark, & York, Reference Foster, Clark and York2010; Longo, Clausen, & Clark, Reference Longo, Clausen and Clark2015). Unsurprisingly, corporate actors have shown themselves to be more interested in developing sustainable markets than sustainable ecosystems (Ponte, Reference Ponte2012; Willer, Reference Willer2021). These are not simply questions of morals or values of business leaders, but structural dynamics and dictates, which require rich applications of social theory and research for analysis.

From a sociological perspective, the individual views of managers and executives (and the non-binding voluntary sustainability declarations that they sign) matter little in relation to the social structural imperatives and institutional dynamics related to, for example, rationalization, social stratification, commodification, and growth (Polanyi, Reference Polanyi1944; Weber, Reference Weber1913). These are dynamics that have been examined at depth in environmental sociological research, as well as other areas of social science (e.g. Carrillo & Pellow, Reference Carrillo and Pellow2021; Foster et al., Reference Foster, Clark and York2010; Gunderson & Fyock, Reference Gunderson and Fyock2021; Longo et al., Reference Longo, Clausen and Clark2015; York, Reference York2017). Indeed, the concentrated power of key corporate enterprises is often used in a manner that, directly or indirectly, circumvent equity and sustainability goals (Dunlap & Brulle, Reference Dunlap and Brulle2015; Pellow, Reference Pellow2007). This is done through government influence, impeding technological development (e.g. away from fossil fuels), magnifying environmental inequalities, externalizing costs, dominating cultural institutions (e.g. mass media and universities), consolidating public wealth and resources, among other processes (Howard, Reference Howard2016; Longo et al., Reference Longo, Isgren, Clark, Jorgenson, Jerneck, Olsson, Kelly, Harnesk and York2021b).

Other related matters are time horizon and spatial scale. Due to the very structure of present-day market economies, corporations focus on relatively short-term profits, not long-term sustainability. For example, if a corporation can extract valuable timber at a rapacious pace that undermines the long-term sustainability of the forest ecosystem, it is not necessarily a bad business decision (Willer, Reference Willer2021). The capital gained from rapid logging can be invested in other business propositions, which promise high returns. Corporations are not inherently tied to any particular resource or ecosystem (the way that, e.g. indigenous communities or small-scale fishers are), since they can and do shift capital investments regularly. Those investment shifts can occur within the specific sector (e.g. from fishing for one species to fishing for another species), or between sectors (e.g. from timber to other financial assets), or to another geographic location. Furthermore, many corporations are conglomerates with diverse subsidiaries. Capital is entangled in international networks and can be shifted as needed (Hymer, Reference Hymer1972). Thus, corporations – especially transnational corporations – are unlikely ‘engines’ of sustainability transformations (Österblom, Bebbington, Blasiak, Sobkowiak, & Folke, Reference Österblom, Bebbington, Blasiak, Sobkowiak and Folke2022a).

3. Naturalizing social processes

The keystone actor concept was originally developed in relation to research on marine systems, and later extended (Folke et al., Reference Folke, Österblom, Jouffray, Lambin, Adger, Scheffer, Crona, Nyström, Levin, Carpenter, Anderies, Chapin, Crépin, Dauriach, Galaz, Gordon, Kautsky, Walker, Watson and de Zeeuw2019; Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Jouffray, Folke, Crona, Troell, Merrie and Rockström2015). Regarding marine resources, keystone actors are predicted to ‘not only have a disproportionate ability to steer the direction of the seafood industry but also to shape the world's marine ecosystems and how they are managed’ (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Jouffray, Folke, Crona, Troell, Merrie and Rockström2015). Generally – analogous to how keystone species warrant particular attention given their disproportionate role for the structure of ecological communities – ‘identifying these key actors is a critical step toward encouraging innovation, fostering greater equity, and promoting better ocean stewardship’ (Blasiak et al., Reference Blasiak, Jouffray, Wabnitz, Sundström and Österblom2018).

This conceptual approach risks reifying corporate power and naturalizing social hierarchies (Dale, Reference Dale2021). That is to say, it essentially turns a socially constructed phenomenon, a corporation, into the equivalent of a biophysical one, an organism, as a basis for broader sustainability. The keystone metaphor also leads to a fundamental misreading of how corporations operate. Unlike a keystone species, which serve important ecological functions that, for example, can help maintain biodiversity, corporations tend to suppress competition and monopolize resources and power, thus reducing diversity of social forms. As such, they are not at all like keystone species. Corporations are not ecological categories, they are social – more specifically economic – entities. Indeed, within the parameters of the current social order, they tend to appropriate disproportionately from common pool resources, and concentrate the benefits within a small group of social actors. The research program is based on one that emphasizes ‘social-ecological systems’, but it must be careful not to reify socially constructed aspects of these systems.

The naturalization of social processes, conditions, and institutions is a frequent problem associated with applying ‘common sense’, but not theoretically informed, notions to social phenomena (Gramsci, Reference Gramsci1971). By doing so, existing social conditions are accepted as givens, rather than as historically contingent forms that are thereby alterable. In a striking example, Folke et al. (Reference Folke, Österblom, Jouffray, Lambin, Adger, Scheffer, Crona, Nyström, Levin, Carpenter, Anderies, Chapin, Crépin, Dauriach, Galaz, Gordon, Kautsky, Walker, Watson and de Zeeuw2019) argue that ‘Reality presents us with dominance’, and thus ‘the global dominance of TNCs [transnational corporations] is a reality of the Anthropocene’. TNCs may be dominant, but they became so through contingent and ongoing social processes and struggles, and have very recent historical origins. Indeed, TNCs can be transformed through human decisions and plans. Thus, they develop in a manner unlike the evolutionary and ecological processes that give rise to keystone species. Their dominance can decline through future social struggles and structural changes – also in the ‘Anthropocene’. The keystone actor model instead implies that historically developed, social structural circumstances are given, fixed, and essentially unchangeable. This ‘common-sense’ social analysis stems from an ahistorical starting point, lacking in the wealth of knowledge from social science, and particularly the rich insights from historical sociology (Longo et al., Reference Longo, Isgren, Clark, Jorgenson, Jerneck, Olsson, Kelly, Harnesk and York2021b). In terms of social theory, it takes the current social order as a functional necessity and results in positing a ‘false necessity’ to social conditions (Calhoun, Reference Calhoun, Delanti and Isen2003). This is essentially a Panglossian view, where ‘all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’, a common conclusion in functionalist interpretations (Olsson, Jerneck, Thoren, Persson, & O'Byrne, Reference Olsson, Jerneck, Thoren, Persson and O'Byrne2015).

4. Scientific cooperation and the commensurability of stakeholders

The corporate biosphere stewardship approach acknowledges that prior versions of corporate environmental and social responsibility have not been very effective (Folke et al., Reference Folke, Österblom, Jouffray, Lambin, Adger, Scheffer, Crona, Nyström, Levin, Carpenter, Anderies, Chapin, Crépin, Dauriach, Galaz, Gordon, Kautsky, Walker, Watson and de Zeeuw2019; Österblom, Jouffray, Folke, & Rockström, Reference Österblom, Jouffray, Folke and Rockström2017). Nevertheless, with the help of the scientific community, this tide may be turning (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Bebbington, Blasiak, Sobkowiak and Folke2022a, Reference Österblom, Folke, Rocha, Bebbington, Blasiak, Jouffray, Selig, Wabnitz, Bengtsson, Crona, Gupta, Henriksson, Johansson, Merrie, Nakayama, Crespo, Rockström, Schultz, Sobkowiak and Lubchenco2022b). More and more, corporations are voluntarily recognizing the need to incorporate sustainability into their agendas, understanding that they are among the many ‘stakeholders’, with an interest in sustaining earth systems (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Cvitanovic, van Putten, Addison, Blasiak, Jouffray, Bebbington, Hall, Ison, LeBris, Mynott, Reid and Sugimoto2020). Through collaborating with scientists, ‘pioneering companies’ can increasingly incorporate sustainability standards, forcing both upstream and downstream actors to grapple with them (Folke et al., Reference Folke, Österblom, Jouffray, Lambin, Adger, Scheffer, Crona, Nyström, Levin, Carpenter, Anderies, Chapin, Crépin, Dauriach, Galaz, Gordon, Kautsky, Walker, Watson and de Zeeuw2019). The vital importance of healthy ecosystems can thus reverberate throughout the production chain. The feasibility and expediency of the approach appear self-evident. Large corporations, like others who rely on ecosystem services, are stakeholders. Scientists' cooperation with these keystone actors provides great potential to advance ‘transdisciplinarity and co-production of knowledge’, two popular trends in sustainability science research (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Cvitanovic, van Putten, Addison, Blasiak, Jouffray, Bebbington, Hall, Ison, LeBris, Mynott, Reid and Sugimoto2020).

This aspect of the research program is challenged for three major reasons. First, it casts the approach as transformative transdisciplinary knowledge co-production, but underplays the obvious risks of industry cooptation and reinforcing elite dominance. Researchers are careful to emphasize that the motivation to engage with keystone actors is their objective importance, not political conviction. They recognize the risks associated with private funding in terms of perceived legitimacy, assuring that researchers act as independent scientists and that the research is not directly funded by the corporations (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Jouffray, Folke and Rockström2017, Reference Österblom, Cvitanovic, van Putten, Addison, Blasiak, Jouffray, Bebbington, Hall, Ison, LeBris, Mynott, Reid and Sugimoto2020). However, avoiding direct financing of the scientific work by participating corporations does not necessarily guarantee independence or objectivity. Assuming so signals a serious underestimation of the complexity associated with transdisciplinary research in regards to power relations and agenda-setting (Fritz & Binder, Reference Fritz and Binder2020). That is to say, as co-production of knowledge is designed to do, close interaction with these ‘stakeholders’ has significant influence on the types of research questions that get asked and the analytical direction the research project takes. Additionally, there is insufficient deliberation when it comes to the financial support provided by philanthrocapitalist foundations (about SeaBOS, 2020; Haydon, Jung, & Russell, Reference Haydon, Jung and Russell2021). These foundations are becoming increasingly influential in research and policy on environmental (and other) issues, but their tendency to champion market-based solutions over community control, undermine participation, and leverage public resources for private gain highlights the need for a high degree of reflexivity on account of researchers (Gruby, Enrici, Betsill, Le Cornu, & Basurto, Reference Gruby, Enrici, Betsill, Le Cornu and Basurto2021; Haydon et al., Reference Haydon, Jung and Russell2021; Holmes, Reference Holmes2012; Thompson, Reference Thompson2018).

Second, the approach is ultimately rooted in an information-deficit understanding of unsustainability, which poses that it is lack of knowledge (in this case, among corporate management) that stands in the way of sustainable practices and effective CSR work. In this view, the central driver of corporate actions, that is profit maximization and accumulation, is seen as easily incorporated into sustainable decisions and practices once properly informed by science. Indeed, once managers are enlightened, the drive to secure profits is even framed as the cure. However, as discussed above, this lacks a deep engagement with social theory that emphasizes the influence of social structure and social forces in shaping decisions and actions of individuals and the enterprises they run. Organizational structure and institutional arrangements can and do significantly affect the ways in which enterprises interact with ecosystems (Fancy, Reference Fancy2021; Grant, Bergesen, & Jones, Reference Grant, Bergesen and Jones2002; Waddock, Reference Waddock2020).

Third, elite corporate actors are framed as just another in the long line of stakeholders that sustainability researchers ought to collaborate with in transdisciplinary knowledge co-production (Norström et al., Reference Norström, Cvitanovic, Löf, West, Wyborn, Balvanera, Bednarek, Bennett, Biggs, de Bremond, Campbell, Canadell, Carpenter, Folke, Fulton, Gaffney, Gelcich, Jouffray, Leach and Österblom2020), alongside (for example) indigenous communities and other marginalized groups on the one hand, and democratically elected representatives on the other. These actors are much too heterogeneous in terms of political influence, economic resources, and the ‘stakes’ they have in sustainable use and management of specific ecosystems, to all be gathered under one umbrella term. The largest and wealthiest enterprises in the world, for example transnational seafood companies, are not equivalent stakeholders to small-scale producers, for example artisanal fishers. As discussed above, the power asymmetries are extraordinary. Putting them broadly on the same plane, again, misses the accumulated power of the largest actors and the vast influence that they have over the political-economic and cultural landscapes. In particular, the corporate biosphere stewardship approach does not sufficiently stress the undemocratic nature of this power, which is likely further reinforced through the offering of scientific legitimacy. The clarification that science–industry collaboration should not be seen as an ‘expression of support’ (Österblom et al., Reference Österblom, Jouffray, Folke and Rockström2017) indicates awareness of this problem, but is not enough to avoid it. This would be of less concern if it were historically the case that ‘keystone actors' inherently operate in the interest of long-term sustainability. We have argued that they do not, and indeed, it is well known that corporate actors – and the economic logic under which they operate – have played a large role in creating the environmental and social problems the research program suggests they can help solve (Clapp, Reference Clapp2018; Clark & Longo, Reference Clark and Longo2021; Hinton, Reference Hinton2020; Mallin & Barbesgaard, Reference Mallin and Barbesgaard2020; Schneider et al., Reference Schneider, Hinton, Collste, González, Cortes-Calderon and Aguiar2020).