Sustainable governance as an entrepreneurial driver for biodiversity: insights from the banking ecosystem

Purpose The growing urgency to safeguard biodiversity has stimulated a reconsideration of how entrepreneurial and financial actors can contribute to ecosystem regeneration. Despite the increasing relevance of sustainability in business strategy, the integration of biodiversity-oriented practices within the banking sector remains underdeveloped. In particular, limited attention has been paid to how governance can be used as a strategic management tool through which organizations design and implement biodiversity-oriented strategies for sustainable ecosystem management. This study aims to identify the key drivers of sustainable governance through the lens of the Business Model Canvas (BMC), developing a conceptual framework that shows how banks can embed biodiversity objectives into strategic planning, organizational processes, and business model reconfiguration. Methodology The research adopts a qualitative and deductive approach based on an in-depth case study conducted within a pioneering bank recognized for its sustainable governance practices. Drawing on multiple semi-structured interviews and extensive document analysis, the study investigates how systemic innovation, strategic alignment, and organizational learning enable the incorporation of sustainability and biodiversity objectives into the architecture of the business model. Findings The findings indicate that sustainable governance functions as a catalyst for ecosystemic innovation, fostering the transition toward regenerative, data-driven, and biodiversity-oriented entrepreneurial configurations. More specifically, governance emerges as a strategic coordination platform that supports the alignment of stakeholder engagement, digital transformation, transparency, and value creation processes toward biodiversity. Originality This study provides a novel contribution by framing sustainable governance not only as an entrepreneurial lever, but also as a strategic management architecture for biodiversity within the banking industry. The proposed BMC-based framework integrates perspectives from strategic management, entrepreneurship, and ecosystem regeneration, offering new theoretical and practical insights into how systemic innovation can drive the design of biodiversity-positive business models capable of combining economic growth, social responsibility, and ecological renewal.