TEMPORAL DYNAMICS BETWEEN SUPRANATIONAL BIODIVERSITY POLICY AND CORPORATE DISCLOSURE Assessing the Semantic Relationship between Earnings Calls Conferences and the Work of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures

Abstract

This thesis investigates the influence of the work of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) on corporate biodiversity disclosure. It provides a scalable method for assessing disclosure trends and contributes to the understanding of how voluntary frameworks like the TNFD are received in corporate communication. Through this, the study extends research techniques in Information Systems Research beside the work done in terms of biodiversity research through its specific case. By employing linear regressions with boolean and metrical time-series data as dummy variables, correlation between the framework’s inception date and corporate disclosure is inferred. By comparing TNFD glossary terms with earnings call conference transcripts from global companies between 2014 and 2024, the study applies semantic analysis to measure the framework’s reception globally. The results show that terminology from TNFD’s LEAP framework, particularly terms tied to risk and opportunity, are reflected increasingly in corporate language. Especially after the date of the TNFD inception in 2021, terms relating to impacts on nature are less precisely adopted and compared to risks, opportunities and dependencies on nature, they show weaker statistical signals. Through a lens of governmentality, the findings support the idea that supranational initiatives can shape corporate communication without direct legal authority. The findings underline timely research in supporting that the adoption of terminology linked to financial or internal strategic benefits (anthropocentric framing) is received more openly by companies than the proposition of healing nature for nature’s own sake. It is concluded that governmentality is alive but must be framed anthropocentrically in biodiversity. The question remains open whether this dynamic will translate into fruitful change in the future; while the method applied shows to be a valid research instrument in the scholarship of Information Systems research.