Body and haircare brand, Faith In Nature has legally appointed ‘nature’ to its board of directors to give the natural world a voice within the business.
The first company to officially instate this idea into its constitution, Faith In Nature worked alongside environmental and corporate lawyers to ensure nature has the same voting rights as other directors on its board.
Working through a legal ‘guardianship’ model, a human representative will speak and act on behalf of nature, supported by a committee of environmental experts.
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First to take on the position, which will be on rotation, is Lawyers for Nature director and co-founder, Brontie Ansell. Speaking of her role as the representative for nature, Ansell said: “This will hopefully spark a big change in how the business world perceives and acts on its responsibility to the natural world.
“For too long Nature has been seen purely as an expendable resource: this kind of thinking has led us to the brink of ecological collapse. It can and must change.”
Faith In Nature, which creates natural, cruelty-free and vegan products hopes this initiative will encourage other businesses to reduce their environmental impact.
The company’s creative director, Simeon Rose said: “We’re delighted to be the first to do this but we don’t want to be the last. Our hope is that other businesses who take their responsibility to the natural world seriously will follow suit – and we’re really happy to share details of how and why we did this.
We’ve always wanted Nature to be at the heart of what we do and this felt like this is the next serious step we could take to make that a reality. This is much more than spin: by changing our governance structure we are making sure we’re legally accountable and that what’s good for Nature informs our strategy.”
