In Conservation We Trust: Calculating and Imaging Conservation 'Performance'
Year: 2016
Type: preprint
Abstract: Purpose: The purpose of the study is to contribute to our understanding of how biodiversity accounting is being shaped, and more particularly how conservation performance measures are being built and used. Notably, the case study analyzes the mediating role of the new accounting towards the different stakeholders. This research also furthers our understanding of the role of analogy with accounting and finance in building sustainability accounting innovations. Finally, it emphasizes the power of visuals in mediating conservation performance. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a qualitative approach. Data was collected through 18 semi-directed interviews within the organization, and one with a peer organization’s CEO. Secondary data was collected via internal documents related to the tool being presented in board meetings and workshops, public data related to the organization and media output around the launch of the index. Findings: I analyze how the index for conservation performance was territorialized via two means: first the embedding of the tool within a wide array of trusted scientific elements of conservation measures, and secondly through constant reference to financial terms used to incarnate a sense of urgent necessity for its deployment. Secondly, I analyze the mediating power of the visuals developed to communicate conservation performance. Finally, I examine how the new tool allows for both adjudicating and subjectivizing of people and species. Originality/value: Through this empirical setting, I was able to analyze the first performance measurement tool designed by a conservation NGO. The theoretical framework of Power and Miller (2013) is mobilized to frame the development of how conservation is being territorialized, how it becomes a mediating tool and allows adjudication of conservation.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Authors: Delphine Gibassier, Diane‐Laure Arjaliès
Language: English
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2417753808