This book presents an actionable framework for collective, ecosystem-centred accounting, arguing that lasting biodiversity outcomes depend on negotiated accountability among interdependent stakeholders rather than on impact measurement or economic valuation alone.

As nature recovery rises up policy and private agendas, existing impact assessment tools and natural capital accounting methods – whether centred on businesses or governments – fail to address what this book considers the central challenge for delivering positive ecological outcomes: organising the collective stewardship of shared ecological concerns at the socio-ecosystem level. Building on a decade of research, Clément Feger reframes this as fundamentally a management accounting issue, taking the performativity of accounting seriously and putting it at the service of inter-organisational strategic action for nature. The book first develops the theoretical foundations of the approach through an original synthesis, 'strategic compositionism'. It then introduces the Ecosystem-Centred Accounting Framework and its eight interconnected accounts, a basis for designing actionable accounting systems that support collective dialogue, negotiation and restoration action, before testing them across four contrasting field experiments in France. It closes by laying the foundations for scaling up ecosystem-centred accounting and articulating it with other transformative biodiversity initiatives.

This book will be of great interest to researchers and students in social and environmental accounting, biodiversity management and conservation science. The guidance offered in this book will make it a valuable reference for practitioners and policymakers – including natural area managers, public authorities, businesses and community organisations – confronting the practical challenges of collective ecosystem governance.

Clément Feger is an Associate Professor in Environmental Management at AgroParisTech (Paris-Saclay University), researcher at Montpellier Research in Management (MRM Lab) and associate researcher at CIRED (Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement), France, where he co-directs the Ecological Accounting Chair. He has served for four years as an IPBES expert and Lead Author of the Business and Biodiversity Assessment. His research develops accounting and strategy approaches that support the collective governance of ecosystems by coalitions of public and private actors, drawing on action-research with environmental NGOs, public agencies and businesses in France and abroad.