Part 4: From a bullet point to the boardroom: How the corporate perception of biodiversity evolved throughout the years.

This interview is part of 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲, weekly interviews with fresh takes on biodiversity in business.

To understand where the biodiversity space is heading, you have to understand where it’s been. Few have seen its evolution from as many angles as Juliette Pugliesi. Her journey has taken her from auditing, where nature was a footnote, to the forefront of methodology at WWF and the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN), and now to BSR, where she helps global corporations navigate this complex new reality. I sat down with Juliette to discuss the rapid evolution of corporate biodiversity strategy, the practical challenges of integrating climate and nature, and the crucial lesson she’s learned: the most useful metric isn’t the simplest one, it’s the one that drives real change on the ground.

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You started your career in auditing. What did the conversation around biodiversity look like back then?

It was barely a conversation. When I was at a major auditing firm, biodiversity was literally one bullet point in the list of things we had to verify. The only environmental topic that required mandatory quantification was GHG emissions; everything else could be qualitative. Early in my career, the idea of specializing in biodiversity was dismissed as being 'too niche, too early.' Now, those same companies are actively recruiting for senior biodiversity roles. And the discussion became quantitative: the Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN) have become central to the corporate conversation.

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That’s a huge shift. I've heard companies refer to the SBTN as one of the most complex frameworks they've had to implement. How are companies coping with that leap in complexity?

The biggest challenge I see is for companies to get used to the new location focused approach. Working on specific landscapes or locations makes a lot of sense scientifically. Nature-related impacts are location specific. However, many businesses struggle with unknown sourcing locations, making a commodity-first perspective a more practical starting point in some cases.

The key lies in seeing the location-first approach as the ultimate objective, while recognizing that some companies may need intermediary steps to gradually build their capacity. More broadly, I would say that companies are still learning to balance scientific robustness with business feasibility. SBTN’s ambition plays a critical role in pushing the field forward, and its outcomes must be communicated in a way that is meaningful for business audiences. While more advanced companies may be able to fully meet SBTN’s requirements, others will benefit from phased approaches. The recent evolution of the SBTN validation process—allowing staged implementation—is an important step in this direction. 

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The biggest bottleneck I see with the current target-setting approach is the scalability of the location-first approach.

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You’re now at BSR, an organization that is pushing for more integration between climate and nature. This confirms a trend we've seen in previous interviews. From your perspective, what’s driving this push for integration, both within BSR and across the market?

For BSR it’s strategic vision, which in turn is shaped by company needs. We see it all the time: a company has a Climate Director and a Nature Director, and they don’t talk to each other. One is building a net-zero strategy, and the other is looking at SBTN and TNFD, but they’re working in silos. Now, with limited CSR resources, and shrinking budgets, companies seek efficiency. This has led to the merging of topics and a search for comprehensive solutions.

In response, we’ve created a joint climate and nature working group with our members, using a module-based approach. We’re creating building blocks for an integrated strategy: How do you combine your climate and nature assessments? How do you integrate nature into your climate transition plan? The goal is to break down those internal walls and move from a siloed view to a truly systemic one.

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As nature becomes more strategic and integrated, the stakes get higher. I’m seeing companies become more reluctant to communicate, fearing greenwashing accusations. What’s your take on this trend?

It’s a definite trend. Companies are working more “in the back end” and only communicating after the work is complete. The fear of lawsuits is real. This is where we see the danger of compliance becoming a box-ticking exercise. My perspective is that “doing reporting for reporting is never good.” It’s a temptation to just change a figure in a report without a real strategic shift behind it.

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Do you have an example to illustrate this problem?

A good example is the target setting itself: companies too often focus on the announcement, but not on the resources needed to accomplish the goal. This is why transition planning is becoming so important. It moves the conversation beyond just the target to how you’re actually going to get there. Without a plan, you risk a major backlash. Look at the scandal when some companies quietly deleted sustainability goals from their websites. It was seen as a masterclass in greenwashing and a perfect example of what happens when ambitious targets are set without a viable plan to back them up. The lesson is clear: if you have to change course, you must be transparent. If you’re not, the fallout will be far worse.

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Transition planning moves the conversation beyond just the target to how you’re actually going to get there.

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Looking ahead, BSR has been very active in the conversation around AI. Do you see technology as the key to helping companies manage this complexity and accelerate the transition?

We’re diving in because we have a long track record of addressing sustainability trends and longstanding partnerships with key players in the tech sector. BSR’s position is to be an objective advisor. We aren’t building our own AI tools; instead, we’re focused on helping companies navigate the opportunities and risks.

AI has huge potential. I see valuable use cases in improving supply chain transparency, automating reporting to free up time for strategy, and translating complex technical assessments into strategic business language. At the same time, I think we must maintain a critical perspective. We can’t ignore the environmental and human rights impacts of AI. Companies need to deploy it responsibly and with caution.

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AI has huge potential improving supply chain transparency, automating reporting to free up time for strategy, and translating complex technical assessments into strategic business language

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For a company wanting to use AI responsibly, what’s a practical way to start?

We advise an “impact-based approach.” Instead of getting lost in the technology, start by focusing on the potential impacts on people and the planet. This means getting the right teams in the same room—not just the AI developers, but also the sustainability, legal, and operational teams who understand the real-world consequences. It involves doing a deep check to make sure the technology isn't creating harm, for example through bias in its algorithms or by violating privacy, and assessing its full environmental footprint, from the energy used by data centers to the e-waste from hardware. It's about applying the same rigorous sustainability lens to AI as you would to any other part of your business.

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The most useful metric is the one that leads to a change on the ground, not just a change on a slide.

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Finally, what’s the single most important message you have for businesses trying to move from reporting to real action on nature?

We can’t stress this enough: biodiversity requires various metrics. A single score is insufficient. We’ve seen this in France, where many companies adopted a single metric tool, such as the Global Biodiversity Score (GBS). Major companies started using it, but are now moving away from it because it flattened the results to such an extent that while it resonated with the board, it didn’t offer the information needed to actually drive change. If you can’t act on it, it’s not a useful metric, no matter how simple it seems. Biodiversity is unfortunately complex, and our attempts to oversimplify it for the sake of a single, neat number often lead us away from meaningful action, not towards it. The most useful metric is the one that leads to a change on the ground, not just a change on a slide.