Business Participation to Global Biodiversity Governance: Challenging Theory with Empirical Data

International audienceThis article aims at questioning the way business representatives organise when confronted to the development of international environmental regulations. The negotiations of the Convention on biodiversity (CBD) are investigated as a case study. After examining the existing literature on business involvement in international biodiversity governance, the article elaborates on a database of business participation to CBD negotiations. The main aim, while using such a database, is to clarify theoretical hypotheses on business participation to environmental regimes as well as to propose new directions for further research on business actors in environmental governance. The first results from this quantitative assessment are discussed and complemented with qualitative data from the literature as well as a series of interviews and participatory observations. The article sheds some light on current trends in the participation of industries to international biodiversity policy-making. In particular, business actors are much more diversified than theoretical frameworks supposed them to be. The handful of individuals that initially represented business in biodiversity governance is nowadays being slowly replaced by a broader range of economic actors advocating new solutions for sustainable development. These actors act through national delegations as well as direct participation to the negotiations through individual firms or business coalitions. In order to take the diversity of business actors into account, the research calls for the development of more precise empirical assessments of business actors in environmental governance