Accounting for Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Species: Impacts, Dependencies, and the State of Nature

📢 CALL FOR PAPERS

Accounting for Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Species: Impacts, Dependencies, and the State of Nature

Journal: Meditari Accountancy Research

Publisher: Emerald Publishing

Submission Opens: 1 October 2026

Submission Deadline: 30 November 2026

Introduction

Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are among the greatest challenges of our time. Investors are recognizing nature risk in their portfolios, and nature-related issues are increasingly acknowledged as material to the future financial prospects of businesses and financial institutions. As a result, a significant increase in the quantity and quality of nature and biodiversity information — especially organizations' dependencies — is required urgently to satisfy the decision-making needs of investors and other stakeholders.

Understanding the relationship between organizations, biodiversity, and ecosystems is a crucial issue for addressing biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse — and ultimately unlocking accounting's potential to shape a better world. This relationship is triadic — composed of three main building blocks: impacts, dependencies, and the state of nature.

Accounting for Impacts implies understanding the direct and indirect, positive and negative effects an organization has on the five main impact drivers — over-exploitation of natural resources, pollution, introduction of invasive alien species, sea/land use change, and contribution to climate change. This includes carbon accounting, water accounting, full cost accounting, and extinction accounting — which calls organizations to accept moral responsibility for biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.

Accounting for Dependencies means understanding which ecosystem services an organization relies on — such as the supply of raw materials, fertile land, pleasant scenery, and clean air — and what would happen if those services deteriorated or ceased. This also includes recognizing opportunities arising from ecosystem services as sources of innovation and nature-based business models.

Accounting for the State of Nature implies measuring the health and value of ecosystems and species — including ecosystem extent, ecosystem integrity, habitat fragmentation, and species count — alongside natural capital accounting frameworks such as the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting – Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA).

Scope & Significance

This Special Issue invites contributions that push the boundaries of accounting scholarship to engage with the complexities of biodiversity, ecosystems, and species. It seeks normative, interpretive, and critical research to uncover what organizations are doing — and should be doing — to address the global biodiversity crisis.

The editors encourage:

Qualitative, interventionist, and mixed methods approaches
Interdisciplinary research crossing traditional accounting boundaries — incorporating knowledge from biology, agroecology, conservation science, and genetics
Research addressing both external reporting and internal management control dimensions of biodiversity accounting

List of Topic Areas

Manuscripts are invited on themes including, but not limited to:

Accounting for the value(s) of biodiversity and ecosystems
Management control systems to account for impacts, dependencies, and the state of nature
Reporting on dependencies and state of nature
Accounting for dependencies and nature-related risks
Consequences of the application of different types of materiality — impact, financial, and double — on biodiversity and ecosystems
Linkages between environmental accounting and biodiversity and ecosystem accounting
Adoption of tools, frameworks, and standards for biodiversity and ecosystem accounting and their consequences for organizations and for nature
Links between the extinction accounting framework and accounting for dependencies
Accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems and the role of interdisciplinary knowledge exchange
Interdisciplinary knowledge exchange with accountants to measure bio-physical elements
Species accounting — accounting for flora and fauna

Special Issue Workshops

To help authors develop their manuscripts, two workshops linked to this Special Issue will be held in 2026:

🏛️ EEEAGER Workshop Cardiff, 29 June – 1 July 2026

🏛️ Meditari Accountancy Research Conference Leeds, September 2026

⚠️ Please note: presentation at a workshop is not a prerequisite for submission, nor does it guarantee acceptance into the Special Issue.

Guest Editors

Dr. Giacomo Pigatto Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy 📧 giacomo.pigatto@santannapisa.it

Prof. Jill Atkins Cardiff University, UK 📧 AtkinsJ10@cardiff.ac.uk

Prof. Lino Cinquini Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy 📧 lino.cinquini@santannapisa.it

Prof. John Dumay Macquarie University, Australia 📧 john.dumay@mq.edu.au

Dr. Andrea Tenucci Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy 📧 andrea.tenucci@santannapisa.it

Key Deadlines

📅 Manuscript Submission Opens: 1 October 2026 ⏰ Manuscript Submission Deadline: 30 November 2026

Submission Guidelines

Submissions are made through ScholarOne Manuscripts, the official submission platform of Emerald Publishing. Authors must strictly follow the journal's author guidelines.

When submitting, select "Accounting for Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Species: Impacts, Dependencies, and the State of Nature" from the special issue drop-down menu at the appropriate step in the submission process.

⚠️ Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication elsewhere while under review for this journal.

For author guidelines and to submit your manuscript, visit the official Meditari Accountancy Research journal page on the Emerald Publishing website and access via ScholarOne Manuscripts.

About the Journal

Meditari Accountancy Research (MAR), published by Emerald Publishing, is a leading peer-reviewed journal focused on advancing accounting research across financial, management, and sustainability accounting domains. It provides an international forum for scholars and practitioners to explore emerging issues, methodological innovations, and theoretical developments — with a strong commitment to research that shapes a better world.

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