21, September 2022
WE HAVE FAITH IN NATURE'S RIGHTS
This one’s a big one…
We’ve been putting our faith in Nature since 1974. And today that’s truer than ever — as we become the first company in the world to give Nature a voice and a vote!
And we can’t tell you how glad we are to finally see those words in ‘print’. Not just because we’ve been laying the groundwork for this for nearly fifty years, but because it represents a huge step towards recognising Nature as not just a resource from which businesses can keep taking, but as a living, breathing entity that needs us to change our relationship with it. To restore and protect it. To recognise its rights and respect it. And to love it.
So what exactly are we doing?
Good question, and although a lot of the work that’s gone into this has been mind boggling, the outcome is suitably down to earth.
We have an internal mantra at Faith In Nature that Nature is the boss. Eighteen months ago we started to ask what if Nature really was the boss? And ever since then we’ve been working with Earth Law Center and Lawyers For Nature to figure out how to do what we’ve now done: make Nature a director of our company.
This has meant creating a whole new governance system allowing a non human entity (Nature) to be represented on the board by a responsible human, legally bound to speak on behalf of the natural world. Think of it as a child appearing in court. Children cannot legally represent themselves, so a responsible adult must speak in their best interests instead.
It’s what’s known as a ‘proxy role’. Although Nature’s seat does need to be filled by a human, that human is really just Nature’s mouthpiece. The role is fluid, meaning that whoever really needs to be in that seat, can be. From environmental scientists to conservationists to biomimics to First Nations people to… whoever is needed…
But on Day 1, the role will be filled by the bright minds who helped create it — Lawyers For Nature and Earth Law Center. Both have significant expertise in advocating for the Rights of Nature, have a huge network of experts they can work with and are already expanding our horizons of what this means.
So what can we expect going forward? Better informed, less impactful, more responsible decisions. Quite what those are yet, none of us know. This is, quite literally, a leap of faith.
But it’s a leap we’ve been taking over and over again since we started out making soap at the kitchen sink. And it’s a leap we’d love you to make too.
It’s a leap that can be as simple as asking yourself ‘What would Nature say?’, as we asked ourselves for so many years. It might lead you to equally surprising places of your own.
An even simpler change you might make is just capitalising the N in Nature whenever you write it or think about it. It’s a subtle shift, but one that seems to elevate Nature to its rightful place.
Or perhaps you’re in a position to do as we’ve done and give Nature a voice and a vote within your company or organisation. If you are, and you’re as excited by this as we are, that’s precisely why we did this. Not just to give Nature a vote and a voice at Faith In Nature, but at as many companies as possible. We’ve put together this page to answer many of your likely questions, as well as provide you with somewhere to register your interest, so that a member of either Lawyers For Nature or Earth Law Center can get in touch to talk you through the process.
We’re the first company in the world to make Nature a director of our company, but we don’t want to be the last.
The 5 minute explainer:
Related posts:
Recognising the Rights of Nature
Towards permission, not forgiveness
Two different approaches, one common aim