Clément Feger
email: clement.feger@agroparistech.fr

Laurent Mermet

Advances in accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems: a typology focusing upon the environmental results imperative

Keywords: biodiversity, natural capital, environment, ecological indicators, nonfinancial reporting biodiversité, capital naturel, environnement, indicateurs écologiques, reporting extrafinancier

Advances in accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems: a typology focusing upon the environmental results imperative

C. Feger,

Introduction

Accounting consists of designing and systematically utilizing information systems linked to social accountability practices so as to meet the challenges associated with the collective organization of human activity. Accounting systems evolve in line with these challenges. They are inextricably linked to clear-cut and documented approaches to the world and to accessible reporting methods. They reflect the organisational concerns of those professionals who have designed, enhanced and utilized them at different times and for different purposes [START_REF] Hudson | The Role of Accounting in Civilization's Economic Takeoff[END_REF][START_REF] Quattrone | Accounting for God: accounting and accountability in the Society of Jesus (Italy, XVI-XVII centuries)[END_REF][START_REF] Ezzamel | Order and accounting as a performative ritual: Evidence from ancient Egypt[END_REF][START_REF] Kuasirikun | The cosmology of accounting in mid 19th-century Thailand[END_REF][START_REF] Richard | Comptabilité financière 11 e éd[END_REF]. Humanity today faces a wholly unprecedented challenge: how to deal differently with lifestyles and production so that responsibility for the biosphere, "the life support system" on which we depend [START_REF] Daily | Managing earth's life support systems: The game, the players, and getting everyone to play[END_REF] is assumed in a compelling and sustainable fashion. Even so, efforts over several decades at many levels have been inadequate at taking on what was needed to curtail endless biodiversity and planetary ecosystems destruction [START_REF] Steffen | Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet[END_REF].

More than 40 years' critical and interpretative accounting research [START_REF] Naro | Perspectives critiques en comptabilité : le nouveau management public en question[END_REF][START_REF] Miller | Accounting, Organizing, and Economizing: Connecting Accounting Research and Organization Theory[END_REF] have shown that accounting systems make it possible to establish, initiate and maintain systems of accountability within organizations [START_REF] Roberts | Accounting systems and systems of accountability -Understanding accounting practices in their organisational contexts[END_REF][START_REF] Roberts | The possibilities of accountability[END_REF][START_REF] Chapman | Linking Accounting, Organizations, and Institutions[END_REF] as well as to structure and to regulate intra-and interorganizational power relations that combine with acknowledgement of responsibilities [START_REF] Richard | Les trois stades du capitalisme comptable français[END_REF][START_REF] Richard | Comptabilité financière 11 e éd[END_REF]. Moreover, accounting systems grant totemic debate and renewal of conventions on which an organization's, a state's or a human collective's chosen values are based [START_REF] Amblard | Conventions et comptabilité : vers une approche sociologique du modèle[END_REF][START_REF] Chiapello | La construction comptable de l'économie[END_REF]). Given such development potential and the performative nature of accounting practice and theories , i.e. their capacity for yielding organizational and institutional effect [START_REF] Morgan | Accounting as reality construction: towards a new epistemology for accounting practice[END_REF][START_REF] Carruthers | Accounting for Rationality : Double-Entry Bookkeeping and the Rhetoric of Economic Rationality[END_REF][START_REF] Çalışkan | Study of markets Economization, part 2 : a research programme for the study of markets[END_REF][START_REF] Miller | Accounting, Organizing, and Economizing: Connecting Accounting Research and Organization Theory[END_REF], accounting as a branch of knowledge can and must make innovative and germane contributions to the massively varied challenge of protecting the planet's ecosystems and to the organizational changes needed to achieve this. However, the vast majority of accounting systems as they stand render the values of nature invisible along with vital considerations of decision-making and management, both in the private and public sector [START_REF] Teeb | The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in National and International Policy Making[END_REF][START_REF] Teeb | The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Business and Enterprise[END_REF].

Preservation of biodiversity and ecosystems is indeed a particularly recent challenge in the field of social and environmental accounting research (Thomson 2014a). As Jones (2014a, p.5) reminds us: "It is fair to say that, with some rare early exceptions (eg [START_REF] Jones | Accounting for biodiversity : a pilote study[END_REF][START_REF] Jones | Accounting for biodiversity: operationalising environmental accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Houdet | Integrating biodiversity into business strategies. The biodiversity accountability framework[END_REF][START_REF] Houdet | Accounting for changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services from a business perspective[END_REF], both practitioners and academic accountants have generally not recognized the importance of biodiversity". In the past decade, the publication of PhD dissertations on the subject [START_REF] Houdet | Entreprises, biodiversité et services écosystémiques. Quelles interactions et stratégies ? Quelles comptabilités ?[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF][START_REF] Ionescu | Biodiversité et stratégie des organisations : construire des outils pour gérer des relations multiples et inter-temporelles[END_REF], as well as the publication of a collective book entitled Accounting for Biodiversity [START_REF] Jones | Accounting for biodiversity[END_REF]) and two special issues of the Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal [START_REF] Jones | Problematising accounting for biodiversity[END_REF][START_REF] Russell | Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts: Critical reflections on environmental accounting and propositions for ecologically informed accounting[END_REF]) made it possible to lay the foundations of rich academic debate on biodiversity accounting practices. To be able equally to discuss enquiry into accounting which focuses on various natural entities, and also to support different definitions of "biodiversity" and "ecosystems", we use these two terms here in an equivalent yet broad sense. This in order to describe all types of natural environment and environmental compartments (water, soil, forests, lakes, seas, etc.), animal and plant species as well as issues relating to good ecosystem functioning and services they provide to society (often referred to as "ecosystem services", "natural capital"; see UNEP 2011; or more recently from "nature's contributions to people", [START_REF] Chaplin-Kramer | Global modeling of nature's contributions to people[END_REF]). In the face of increasing deliberation and suggestions concerning domain expansion, it has become necessary to be more familiar with the current state of affairs in order to position investigations in relation to one another and to believe their interlinking is possible to bolster collective accountability regarding the state of ecosystems.

In this paper, we wish therefore to build on our previous work on the development of "ecosystem-centric management accounting" [START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | A blueprint towards accounting for the management of ecosystems[END_REF][START_REF] Cuckston | Ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity in the production of a blanket bog[END_REF][START_REF] Dey | Who speaks for the river? Exploring biodiversity accounting using an arena approach[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Four priorities for new links between conservation science and accounting research[END_REF]) by showing how this emerging research stream provides new insight and features for linking country-and company-specific accounting procedures. This drove us to carry out the first exercise to identify, discuss and qualify major areas of accounting for biodiversity research and innovation. We draw on both these ecosystemcentric developments, on existing work and on efforts in the field of national and corporate accounting to address the following questions: where and how can accounting research and development contribute to greater provision for, structuring of and operationalization of public and private acceptance of responsibility for biodiversity and planetary ecosystems? In what way does the development of new "ecosystem-centric management accounting" approaches and experiments complement current biodiversity research and investigation efforts occurring at other levels?

To help steer a path through the plethora of past and current proposals and in order to answer these questions, in Section I we advocate a four-point classification from all angles and of all advances in accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems. In the subsequent four sections, we will review the quartet of identified areas of innovation to show their diversity and to highlight more effectively their characteristics of origin, nature, scope and purpose, as well as to underline concurrent contentions. We will then demonstrate strong synergies between these four areas of innovation and their respective transformative potential, and that the ability to effectively manage ecosystems for measurable ecological results will depend on how they are interlinked.

If our paper adopts biodiversity conservation as its central inquiry, and as such reviews a substantial part of accounting discourse on this particular topic, its logic stems more broadly from social and environmental accounting literature [START_REF] Gray | Is accounting for sustainability actually accounting for sustainability...and how would we know? An exploration of narratives of organisations and the planet[END_REF][START_REF] Gray | New accounts: Towards a reframing of social accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Russell | Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts: Critical reflections on environmental accounting and propositions for ecologically informed accounting[END_REF]. Similarly, argument developed around ecosystems may be extrapolated to other topics in environmental accounting and management control, in particular those relating to issues of change of scope and interorganizational management (for example, research on the circular economy) (see [START_REF] Petitjean | Frontières de la firme et contrôle interorganisationnel : l'exemple des réseaux contractuels de distribution[END_REF].

1) A typology for biodiversity and ecosystem accounting

An increasingly diverse and rising number of accounting research proposals today focus primarily on greater consideration of biodiversity and ecosystems in existing accounting systems, and then centre on exploring breakthroughs in accounting that are specifically developed for assessing and managing the challenges of biodiversity conservation. To facilitate matters, we suggest a typology based on exchange between two widely used concepts in accounting practices: the concept of accounting scope and then the distinction made between management and general accounting methods (see Feger 2016, chap. 5 for a first version of this typology).

Firstly, we would like to identify ecosystem accounting developments in three key categories of accounting entity: (1) corporate scope of accounting (and more broadly within formally and legally recognised private organizations); (2) scope of accounting at national or other territorial level reliant upon public government (region, European Union, for example);

(3) scope of accounting based on a given ecosystem or ecological issue (for example the preservation of a marshland, a forest or a species habitat) where biodiversity performance is played out -and managed -in exceptionally contrasting operational and decision-making conditions. We group these last two in the same category of scope of accounting for collective biodiversity governance and management, where public and private stakeholder capability is assessed in summary and in relation to organizing the mutual preservation of common environmental goods, i.e. ecosystems.

Secondly, our classification incorporates and transfers to accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems that distinction which is made in French accounting and also made in other traditionally dualist countries (Richard et al. 2018, p.118). This incorporation and replication occurs initially between a) general (or financial) accounting that seeks to produce a standardized and regular overall picture of a situation, i) assets and performance of an organization as a whole, ii) report to its external stakeholders (economic, social, investors, public authorities, etc.) at the end of an audit (Colasse and Lesage 2007, p. 10) and b) in contrast, management (or analytical) accounting -unregulated and ad-hoc -the greatest challenge of which is to help managers within organizations (at project, team or activity sector scale, etc.) formulate and implement strategies for analysis, decision-making, management, planning and operations control, costs, resources, performance and responsibilities relating to results delivery and discrepancies within those results [START_REF] Horngren | Introduction to management accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Macintosh | Management Accounting and Control Systems. An organizational and sociological approach 2 e éd[END_REF].

Without delving into the detail of these differences, we will stick with the broad concept of distinguishing between firstly operations and accounting tools, the purpose of which is to establish ex-post balance sheets at a given moment in the development of an accounting entity and to report upon its entire influence by calculating aggregate data in line with standardized accounting procedure. We will then continue with accounting activities and tools designed explicitly to support detailed breakdown, actions and strategic management of an entity and the delivery of results within pragmatically defined boundaries.

Our typology (Figure 1) stems from the intersection of these two aspects -corporate accounting perimeters vs. collective accounting perimeters; purpose and logic that fall within management accounting and purpose and logic that fall within general accounting, or more generically what we propose to refer here to as "balance sheet accounting". This classification recognizes four major areas of biodiversity and ecosystem accounting innovation. With biodiversity accounting innovation, reference is made to a particular type of managerial innovation defined by David (2013, p.92) as "a successful management invention -in the sense of a minimum of acknowledgement and implementation -and which partly changes at least ways of thinking and conducting the broad understanding of organized action". As such, we identify a highly varied set of accounting method developments, information systems and assessment tools. These have been more or less successful and implemented to varying degrees.

They can be based on monetary, biophysical and ecological metrics and are designed to set up coordinated biodiversity activity in different ways and at different levels. As such, we can attribute a less restrictive meaning than that given by [START_REF] Lafontaine | Les techniques de comptabilité environnementale, entre innovations comptables et innovations managériales[END_REF] to environmental accounting innovations, principally because we widen the scope of developments considered beyond only organization-centric accounting systems. The scope of affected stakeholders widens outside that which includes only accounting professionals. Indeed, each of the four major areas identified covers a vast field of research and practice, which itself has its own chronicle of events and concerns. In that respect, moving from one field to another represents navigation from a specific understanding of accounting and a specific area of research to another. Each time, this means adopting a clear-cut interpretation of what new theory or practice in the field brings to different stakeholders that in turn could effect change which favors ecosystem management. Each domain and the vast array of research and hypotheses which informs a domain is further invigorated by considerable debate.

The first area we have called "government natural capital accounting", is the set of proposals for establishing common protocols for assessment, aggregation, representation and reporting on quality and value of all government sector ecosystems (national, regional, European, indeed global). Essentially, it refers to the world of national accounting and to the many past or current studies which look at broadening scope to include ecosystems and their spatial, biophysical and/or monetary assessment so as to inform state policy [START_REF] Bérard | Une nature qui compte? Retour sur le « tournant environnemental » du Système de comptabilité nationale (années 1980-années 2010)[END_REF].

The second area is that of "corporate ecological balance sheet accounting". This category covers all approaches which seek to allow corporate managers to assess and report to society, to the State and to investors on all ecosystem stewardship commitments, operations, efforts and results via simulated and standardized formats, themselves allowing comparison and external appraisal. In this instance, accounting refers essentially to issues of extra-financial reporting [START_REF] Gray | Corporate Reporting for Sustainable Development: Accounting for Sustainability in 2000 AD[END_REF], extended here to biodiversity, and denotes also the transformation of financial accounting and associated norms for natural capital inclusion [START_REF] Rambaud | The "Triple Depreciation Line" instead of the "Triple Bottom Line": Towards a genuine integrated reporting[END_REF]Capitals Coalition 2020). "Corporate ecological management accounting" consolidates all internal accounting innovations designed to support a company's managers (at project, team, business unit, production line or operating site level, etc.) in strategic planning and implementation of biodiversity management. This is intended to improve performance management, impact and risk management and causative management of ecosystem-related operations. In this sense, accounting refers here to the broader domain of Environmental Management Accounting [START_REF] Jasch | Environmental management accounting (EMA) as the next step in the evolution of management accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Schaltegger | An Integrative Framework of Environmental Management Accounting -Consolidating the Different Approaches of EMA into a Common Framework and Terminology[END_REF]) and more generally to the design of ad-hoc tools for management control and appraisal of corporate environmental conduct (see for example research on ecocontrol and eco-efficiency: Henri and Journeault 2010; Antheaume 2013), material flow analysis or lifecycle analysis [START_REF] Bicalho | Limitations of LCA in environmental accounting for biofuels under RED S. Schaltegger, éd[END_REF]) that is applied to biodiversity and ecosystems.

Finally, approaches from within the developing field of "ecosystem-centric management accounting" aim to provide negotiation, environmental performance strategic management and accounts exchanges between numerous interdependent organizations at a given ecosystem or environmental entity level (a lake, a wetland, a watershed, a forest, a population of migratory birds, an ecological corridor, etc). As such, the term accounting refers initially to advocacy of theoretical and critical resources in accounting as a discipline which support scientists and conservation practitioners in their design and strategic use of environmental information systems that have been devised to improve ecosystem management [START_REF] Feger | A blueprint towards accounting for the management of ecosystems[END_REF][START_REF] Cuckston | Making Accounting for Biodiversity Research a Force for Conservation[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Four priorities for new links between conservation science and accounting research[END_REF] and in contrast to the development and testing of accounting models especially designed to structure information for the interorganizational management of ecological entities [START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF][START_REF] Ionescu | Biodiversité et Économie: nouvelles approches, outils et démarches de gestion et de comptabilité[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Negotiating new commitments for the ecological transitions : An introduction to an Accounting for the management of ecosystems model[END_REF].

In summary (Figure 1), two accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems domains fall within corporate entity scope, but are differentiated by their character and relative scale.

Corporate ecological balance sheet accounting deals with the entity's entire scope for overall illustrative purposes and for reporting in line with protocol (which may still need to be approved) for its external stakeholders. However, corporate ecological management accounting aims to guide internal management upstream of the results cycle. It describes only partial corporate activities. Such rationale is already well-known in socio-environmental corporate accounting and in transferring it to collective biodiversity governance and management scopes, two accounting domains stand out as a consequence of their character and corresponding size.

They are i) government natural capital accounting which functions over entire spatial or economic State-level reporting, or a given politico-administrative entity and which yields an aggregated illustration and ii) ecosystem-centric management accounting which maps the relevant management entity specific to each considered ecosystem or ecological issue for which co-operating stakeholders are responsible, and then aligns the wider scope of government accounting which ensues.

Figure 1: Typology of accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems

It is important to note that the first three domains of our typology refer to clearly defined theoretical and practical fields previously addressed in accounting research and many of which have sought over several decades [START_REF] Richard | Comptabilité et Développement Durable[END_REF] to expand the latest environmental stakesnational accounting, corporate accounting. In contrast, the fourth area -ecosystem-centric management accounting, is an area of innovation whose development is particularly recent, even though it covers a real need that cannot be met by other attempts at innovation. In the following four sections, we will sequentially introduce characteristics and studies of these four areas. We will start with the developing field of ecosystem-centric management accounting and will discuss matters of complementarity and relationships with the other three (Text boxes 1, 2 and 3).

2) Ecosystem-centric management accounting: delivering collective ecosystem management strategies

Ecosystem-centric management accounting as a domain characterises the body of work aimed at developing new theoretical and practical accounting approaches for strategic management between stakeholders of a specific ecosystem or ecological issue.

Consequently, the question of actual activity between organizations arises in relation to ecosystem management -efforts to negotiate, organize and implement operations that deliver tangible ecological results for which stakeholders can be held responsible. Stakeholders

Management accounting rationale

Balance sheet accounting rationale

Collective governance and management scope

Corporate scope

Corporate ecological management accounting

Support managers (project, team, production line, operational unit, etc) in the strategic management of impacts, risks, dependencies and business interventions related to ecosystems

Corporate ecological balance sheet accounting

Using standardized formats, assess and report to investors, to the State an to society on pledges, operations, efforts and results delivered in terms of the company's ecosystem stewardship

Government natural capital accounting

Calculate, illustrate and report quality and value of all ecosystems in a territory that are the remit of public governance (national, regional, European, indeed global)

Ecosystem-centric management accounting

Provide conservation strategies, negotiate and be accountable between private and public stakeholders at ecosystem level to organize their management and deliver ecological performance (a lake, a watershed, a migratory bird species etc.) would then be accountable to one another. [START_REF] Dey | Who speaks for the river? Exploring biodiversity accounting using an arena approach[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF][START_REF] Ionescu | Biodiversité et stratégie des organisations : construire des outils pour gérer des relations multiples et inter-temporelles[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | A blueprint towards accounting for the management of ecosystems[END_REF][START_REF] Cuckston | Ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity in the production of a blanket bog[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Four priorities for new links between conservation science and accounting research[END_REF]. Innovation in this field can be summarized by a quotation from the programmatic paper by [START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF]Mermet (2017, p. 1524).

This offers theoretical foundations for the development of such accounting practice: "Overall, we think that four main [elements characterize] full-fledged accounting systems for emerging perimeters of collective ecosystem management: ( 1 This new field of research touches upon an existing phenomenon in strategic environmental management: with the exception of rare cases, entire ecosystem land control (a privately owned forest for example), obtaining quantitative results about the improvement of a given ecosystem's condition at a specified location does not depend solely upon a single company or organization's responsibilities and interventions. On the contrary, the creation or destruction of ecological value occurs from the back-and-forth of interactions between several organizations with often divergent interests and strategies which impact the ecosystem or which contribute to its management in a unique and often frequently uncoordinated manner [START_REF] Ostrom | Governing the Commons. The evolution of institutions for collective action[END_REF][START_REF] Mermet | L'analyse stratégique de la gestion environnementale : un cadre théorique pour penser l'efficacité en matière d'environnement[END_REF][START_REF] Ostrom | A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems[END_REF][START_REF] Mermet | Five paradigms of collective action underlying the human dimension of conservation[END_REF][START_REF] Mermet | Tools for what trade? Utilization of Economic Instruments and Valuations in Biodiversity Management[END_REF]). As such, negotiations and combined management between stakeholders have a positive or negative effect on a predetermined ecological entity and require the development of specific accounting utilities that are explicitly adapted to the degree of precision and diverse nature of collective operations challenges that these stakeholders must face -they must confront them in order to deliver tangible results for ecological quality improvement within the entity and to be able to report upon them [START_REF] Feger | A blueprint towards accounting for the management of ecosystems[END_REF]. However, neither accounting practice within the confines of business entities, nor national environmental public authority accounting practice were meant to fulfil the rigorous task of providing organizational, decision-making and accountability processes for stakeholders interacting at an ecosystem scale.

The development of this field, which is still in its infancy, is at research crossroads in environmental accounting and in the research of conservation science and strategic environmental management [START_REF] Feger | A blueprint towards accounting for the management of ecosystems[END_REF][START_REF] Cuckston | Making Accounting for Biodiversity Research a Force for Conservation[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Four priorities for new links between conservation science and accounting research[END_REF]).

Firstly, it answers calls to move socio-environmental accounting research away from the "obsession with corporate accounts" in order to focus on new types of accounting entities and new forms of "accounts" ("new accounts") (Gray et al. 2014, p. 271). As a result, its beginnings are to be found in recent works that investigate by means of critical and interpretive accounting approaches: (1) in the first instance, the dynamics of exchange of accounts between different stakeholders about an ecosystem analysed as an accounting entity. Work by Dey and Russel (2014) exemplifies such a case with River Garry salmon populations in Scotland. The authors demonstrate how "the demanding and giving" of biodiversity accounts and "counteraccounts" (sustainable development reports on the effects of the dam operator's actions; counter-study produced by a citizens' association; public studies on ecological restoration costs and on the condition of bodies of water etc.) gradually build relations between river stakeholders and transform their collective responsibility for salmon protection; (2) and secondly information systems and nascent calculative practices associated with developing new biodiversity management systems, which themselves are aimed at fostering relations between organizations to deliver environmental performance. The latter includes for instance critical accounting research about certification mechanisms as part of rainforest management [START_REF] Cuckston | Bringing tropical forest biodiversity conservation into financial accounting calculation[END_REF][START_REF] Elad | Forest certification and biodiversity accounting in the Congo basin countries[END_REF]; on the restoration of a peat bog in England [START_REF] Cuckston | Ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity in the production of a blanket bog[END_REF]; or again on the production of "biodiversity credits" and various environmental offsetting tools [START_REF] Tregidga | Biodiversity offsetting: problematisation of an emerging governance regime[END_REF][START_REF] Sullivan | Mathematics maybe, but not money": On balance sheets, numbers and nature in ecological accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Cuckston | Seeking an ecologically defensible calculation of net loss/gain of biodiversity[END_REF].

Secondly, the development of ecosystem-centric management accounting is based on researcher and practitioner biodiversity conservation work. For decades, they have been designing, experimenting and using more and more environmental data and assessment tools.

Such tools are increasingly efficient from a technical perspective and in relation to data and dedicated accounting systems which support decisions and ecosystem intervention management. Various examples include work on developing red list endangered species monitoring [START_REF] Young | Accounting for conservation: Using the IUCN Red List Index to evaluate the impact of a conservation organization[END_REF]; the development of multi-criteria tools for biophysical assessment and mapping of ecosystem services [START_REF] Kareiva | Natural Capital. Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services[END_REF][START_REF] Levrel | How to overcome the implementation gap in ecosystem services? A user-friendly and inclusive tool for improved urban management[END_REF]); or more broadly on biophysical or monetary biodiversity indicators [START_REF] Levrel | Indicateurs et évaluation des coûts de restauration[END_REF][START_REF] Jørgensen | Twenty volumes of ecological indicators -An accounting short review[END_REF]). However, the designers and users of such tools often encounter difficulties in establishing strong links between the use of environmental data for decision-making and negotiation of long-term reciprocal stakeholder pledges -this is a condition which is nevertheless necessary for delivering environmental results [START_REF] Laurans | Use of ecosystem services economic valuation for decision making: Questioning a literature blindspot[END_REF][START_REF] Ruckelshaus | Notes from the Field: Lessons Learned from Using Ecosystem Service Approaches to Inform Real-World Decisions[END_REF]. Moreover, these tools support little from accounting as a discipline and its theoretical and methodological resources. Consequently, despite computational and evaluative characteristics of a given ecological entity or ecosystem, these conservation information systems ultimately are still broadly speaking "proto-accounting" since they are relatively disconnected from the implementation of "systems of accountability" [START_REF] Roberts | Accounting systems and systems of accountability -Understanding accounting practices in their organisational contexts[END_REF] between stakeholders acting on this ecosystem, and from the strategic organization of collective action to deliver ecological achievement [START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF]Mermet 2017, p. 1518).

Furthermore, concurrent opinion held by conservation and accounting researchers alike has resulted in a work agenda that is both theoretical and practical. It seeks not only critically to analyze the dynamics of accounts exchanges within an ecological entity, but also to expose the limits of existing conservation tools and their uses, and actively to design new accounting innovations explicitly dedicated to strategic biodiversity management on an individual ecosystem scale [START_REF] Feger | Four priorities for new links between conservation science and accounting research[END_REF]). To do this, the aim is to combine the skills of conservation researchers who have carried out genuine research in experimenting such ecological data systems in real-world ecosystem management interventions ; and those of accounting researchers who have the systemic know-how and wealth of theory gained from critical and interpretative accounting -thereby enabling consideration of complex links between information systems and accounting; and organization of action and assumption of responsibility [START_REF] Miller | Accounting, Organizing, and Economizing: Connecting Accounting Research and Organization Theory[END_REF]. Such ecosystem-centric management accounting has to be able to support conservation strategies as well as stakeholder groups, de facto ecosystem managers, and discussion about and assessment of ecological results delivered. This needs to happen via exceptionally diverse activity and power relation frameworks which command indepth analysis in each case. In this respect, for example, work on the development of the ecosystem-centric "Ecological contributions accounts" model aims at monitoring the condition of a particular ecosystem as well as the various pressures deriving from stakeholder operations.

Central in this research is discussion and scrutiny of the various steps taken by different stakeholders to reduce impact or to contribute to regeneration. Monitoring also comes in the form of evaluation of collective ecosystem-level environmental performance data and agreement from each stakeholder to offset labor and costs [START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Negotiating new commitments for the ecological transitions : An introduction to an Accounting for the management of ecosystems model[END_REF].

3) Government natural capital accounting: taking the value of ecosystems into account in public policy and decision-making

The logic behind government natural capital accounting innovation is essentially that of national accounting. It involves frequent national entity level (or any other political area), retrospective balance sheet accounting on environmental condition, value and development offering various types of spatial, biophysical or economic summary [START_REF] Bouni | Développement durable et Macro-systèmes d'information: des comptes d'environnement à l'aide multi-critère à la décision[END_REF][START_REF] Edens | Towards a consistent approach for ecosystem accounting[END_REF]. Schröter et al. (2014, p. 540) carefully summarize the purpose of this type of experiment: "The main aim of ecosystem accounting is to monitor changes in ecosystem conditions and ecosystem services over time from a spatial perspective in a way that is consistent with national accounting".

Contrary to the new field of ecosystem-centric management accounting, these developments have their beginnings in the decades-long chronicle of economic, statistical and environmental sciences [START_REF] Nordhaus | Is Growth Obsolete? In Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect[END_REF][START_REF] Bouni | Développement durable et Macro-systèmes d'information: des comptes d'environnement à l'aide multi-critère à la décision[END_REF][START_REF] Serafy | Green accounting and economic policy[END_REF]Richard 2012, p.15-36;[START_REF] Vanoli | Chapitre 12. Comptabilité nationale, statistiques et indicateurs du développement durable : état de l'art et des réflexions[END_REF][START_REF] Bérard | Une nature qui compte? Retour sur le « tournant environnemental » du Système de comptabilité nationale (années 1980-années 2010)[END_REF]. A documented example we offer in reference to this are the incomplete projects concerning the introduction of natural environments (flora, fauna, soil, wetlands, rivers, etc.) to national accounting which took place in France in the 1970s and 1980s (see research on accounting for natural resources: CICPN-INSEE 1986;[START_REF] Weber | Écologie et statistique : les comptes du patrimoine naturel[END_REF]Bouni 1996, p. 290-314). More recently in this area, a vigorous momentum for innovation has been made possible by particular progress in the use of satellite imagery, data processing and inventory and modelling technologies in environmental sciences [START_REF] Edens | Towards a consistent approach for ecosystem accounting[END_REF]Weber 2014a;[START_REF] Hein | Progress and challenges in the development of ecosystem accounting as a tool to analyse ecosystem capital[END_REF]. Since 2010, political resolution has been to incorporate "biodiversity values" into national accounting practice. This is now a declared aim in biodiversity strategy planning at international and European level (EP 2012). Launched in 2012, the EFESE (Évaluation française des écosystèmes et des services écosystémiques -French Environmental Assessment and Environmental Services) is an example of domain-specific action designed to carry out biophysical condition diagnoses of all ecosystems in France and to establish multidimensional assessment of their contribution to public good [START_REF] Puydarrieux | EFESE -Rapport intermédiaire[END_REF].

Such accounting innovation supports and regulates public and sectoral ecosystems policy. This transcends transformation of collective representation of values referenced by national development goals; it guides public investment in environmental protection (Jackson 2010, p. 144-145). Such accounting innovation explains environmental policy and investment efficiency to a nation's inhabitants. It may even facilitate the implementation and monitoring of international biodiversity commitments. As Bérard (2019, p.83) emphasises, with time this work produces new statistical data and standardization seeks also to "provide material responses to the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] set out by the United Nations for 2030" (see in particular Aims 14 and 15 which relate to aquatic and terrestrial life). Government natural capital accounting, which can be described as "macroenvironmental", aims to consolidate, structure and summarize biophysical and economic data about natural resource reserves -or natural capital, to coin the phrase -and to assess their interaction with human activity and macro-ecological systems. The notion of "ecosystem services", which has its roots in both environmental sciences and economics [START_REF] Gómez-Baggethun | The history of ecosystem services in economic theory and practice: From early notions to markets and payment schemes[END_REF]), now forms the prevailing conceptual basis for national scale development of these new green accounting principles. Some advocate an explanation of what ecosystem services are via a submission of useful classification systems formed from an accounting perspective or which are compatible with the definitions, classification systems and indicators for national accounting purposes (for example GDP) which already exist [START_REF] Boyd | What are ecosystem services? The need for standardized environmental accounting units[END_REF][START_REF] Mäler | Accounting for Ecosystem Services as a Way to Understand the Requirements for Sustainable Development[END_REF][START_REF] Teeb | The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in National and International Policy Making[END_REF][START_REF] Banzhaf | The architecture and measurement of an ecosystem services index[END_REF][START_REF] Edens | Towards a consistent approach for ecosystem accounting[END_REF]. Finally, development may be extended further still beyond the SEEA-EEA framework from this area of accounting methodology to all systematic proposals that researchers, associations or independent think-tanks make and which aim consistently to assess, compare and challenge political leaders on management outcomes in ecosystems where they have political remit. Just one example would be research from The Global Footprint Network which assesses the national ecological debt according to the share of the planet's renewable resources that a country consumes each year. The Network alerts citizens, policy makers and international institutions on "budget overspend" [START_REF] Borucke | Accounting for demand and supply of the biosphere's regenerative capacity: The National Footprint Accounts' underlying methodology and framework[END_REF].

The breadth of present-day research is controversial, but this is par for the course when dealing with government natural capital accounting [START_REF] Bérard | Une nature qui compte? Retour sur le « tournant environnemental » du Système de comptabilité nationale (années 1980-années 2010)[END_REF]. Such discourse chiefly concerns how accounting concepts are defined and which accounting conventions should apply to biodiversity, natural capital and ecosystem services. They involve the representation of the world they underpin, how to set up biophysical ecosystem accounting and benchmarking [START_REF] Comte | Ecosystem accounting in support of the transition to sustainable societies -the case for a parsimonious and inclusive measurement of ecosystem condition[END_REF]. They also link to front-runner types of ecosystem monetary assessment. Is it in fact a question of measuring present-day economic value or a forecast value for all ecosystem services so as to gain a broad view of capital, as recommended by research adopting a weak sustainability perspective (eg WAVES 2014)? Or is it more a question of evaluating "unpaid ecological costs", ie costs that would have to be borne to avoid or renew that portion of an ecosystem degraded by human activity over a given period, which then leads to calculation of "environmental debt" [START_REF] Levrel | Coût d'opportunité VS coût de maintien des potentialités écologiques: deux indicateurs économiques pour mesurer le coût de l'érosion de la biodiversité[END_REF][START_REF] Edens | Towards a consistent approach for ecosystem accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Vanoli | Comptabilité nationale et prise en compte du patrimoine naturel[END_REF] in line with strong sustainability approaches [START_REF] Dietz | Weak and strong sustainability in the SEEA: concepts and measurement[END_REF]?

Apart from such important discussions about theory and method, one of the main problems remains, however, poor operationalization of national environmental accounting practices. Although to date 24 countries have published national ecosystem accounts with varying degrees of progress [START_REF] Hein | Progress in natural capital accounting for ecosystems[END_REF], the few studies which have sought to assess the effectiveness of this type of accounting reflect poor take-up for decision-making and public policy making. This is linked primarily to technical implementation difficulties and then, to lack of political and institutional support [START_REF] Virto | Natural Capital Accounts and Public Policy Decisions: Findings From a Survey[END_REF]. Admittedly, there is a problem associated with complex issues around defining and negotiating quantification norms to be accepted. Then, there are uncertain associated measurement procedures. The same applies to intransigent attitudes to existing accounting norms and those supporters of them -norms which are already part of the framework of National Accounting Systems. A yet more fundamental limitation of government natural capital accounting arises from their precise nature. This cannot be resolved by esoteric debate only: they cannot operationalize and support "the spread of ecosystem management", which nonetheless has been called for by some of those who are behind its existence (Weber 2014a, p. 18). Given the main job of government natural capital accounting is to enhance genericity and to define and to align categories, their nature removes the profound contextual differences associated with strategic action and collective intervention from which clear ecological results are likely to be produced. What arises from this is firstly a deep gulf between the job of balance sheet production and communication of ecosystem status updates and development data and, secondly the set of management issues and institutional structure and stakeholder commitments that must be addressed in order to effect change and bolster effective ecosystem management (Hein et al. 2015, p. 90), notwithstanding the spatial scale to which they are applied (see for example a recent application of the ENCA-QSP model to the Rhône basin: Argüello-Velazquez 2019). It is in fact incumbent upon ecosystem-centric management accounting to define the missing link between consolidated balance sheet accounting and management operationalization in a less consolidated fashion (Text box 1).

Text box 1: Matters arising from coupling government natural capital accounting and ecosystem-centric management accounting

Government natural capital accounting could pioneer new joint representations of a common viewpoint given ecosystem importance. This could be a basis for a "top-down" assessment of the degree of physical decay and level of attendant maintenance costs. It could thereby enable public bodies to regulate aspirations to respect ecological limits and better manage policies and investments in favor of ecosystem renewal (see in particular strong sustainability research, such as the ENCA-QSP model and approaches to assessing unpaid ecological costs, Weber 2014a; [START_REF] Vanoli | Comptabilité nationale et prise en compte du patrimoine naturel[END_REF]. Seen from this angle, ecosystem-centric management accounting is quite reciprocal: (1) it delegates and tracks accountability linked to conservation or ecological restoration activity associated with operationalization of large numbers of stakeholder groups -these have real power to drive a particular ecosystem (for example assume responsibility for aquatic biodiversity quality of an individual river). Ecosystem-centric management accounting aims to establish new and steady types of collective organization (which for example, involve stakeholder obligation -a company, an environmental association, a fishing association, and a project operator -on which ultimately biodiversity quality of a particular river depends) that is able to deliver ecological results and report on them; (2) that is able to acknowledge (by using standardized "macro-ecological" frameworks of government accounting prototypes), i) collectively produced cumulative values and ii) to command well calculated results in situ, true costs and efforts also that have been brokered and committed to jointly by stakeholders. In so doing, they can help "bottom-up" enhanced denotation of unit size definition. This is advantageous in government accounting in environmental, biophysical and cost monitoring terms.

4) Corporate ecological management accounting: improving corporate performance within ecosystems

Let us now leave the field of accounting which focuses on collective entities and turn attention to corporate entities. In corporate ecological management accounting, we assemble all developments in accounting practice which aim to help managers who are in charge of specific corporate activity. Such managers may also be responsible for projects which are meant to develop and implement strategies for improving biodiversity and ecosystems impact and performance management of such endeavours. The drive to combine the domain's corporate development across different business sectors, known as The Natural Capital Protocol, illustrates the challenges of stated aims: "It is aimed primarily at managers from sustainability, environment, health and safety, and operations functions to help them to generate natural capital information that can be integrated into existing business processes, such as risk assessments, procurement, operational delivery plans, financial planning, or board papers. It is important to note that information generated is not an end in itself and should be clearly connected to a business decision" (NCC 2016, p. 6).

The aim with such accounting innovations may well be to (1) support efforts to reduce ecosystem impact caused by production and service activity (habitat biodiversity destruction, water pollution, etc.); (2) give greater consideration to risks posed to long-term activity sustainability and corporate economic performance that is linked to ecosystem destruction or mismanagement (reputational risk, reduction of ecosystem services such as pollination or water quality and availability, access to renewable natural resources such as wood, etc.); (3) adapt corporate strategies and business models accordingly, while managing economic cost implications; (4) or assess investment opportunities in ecosystem management or regeneration activity (see for example [START_REF] Schaltegger | Corporate Biodiversity Management Handbook. A guide for practical implementation, Federal Ministry for the Environment[END_REF].

Developments which try to respond to these challenges include some pioneering domain authors who recommend tracing and quantifying methods for physical aspects of ecosystem use across production chains and for integrating associated corporate cost accounting and income analysis [START_REF] Houdet | Accounting for changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services from a business perspective[END_REF][START_REF] Houdet | Entreprises, biodiversité et services écosystémiques. Quelles interactions et stratégies ? Quelles comptabilités ?[END_REF][START_REF] Houdet | Le bilan biodiversité. Une méthodologie pour intégrer la nature dans votre comptabilité[END_REF][START_REF] Houdet | Accounting for biodiversity and ecosystem services from an EMA perspective: towards a standardised biodiversity footprint methodology[END_REF][START_REF] Eftec | Developing corporate natural capital accounts: Final report[END_REF]. In keeping with this research, other authors also suggest development of existing analytical accounting models, not only to reveal corporate costs linked to ecosystem destruction, upon which corporate production operation is contingent, but also in order to define and monitor costs linked to potential corporate involvement in environmental restoration operations. The aim here is to sustain quality above scientifically defined ecosystem conservation thresholds with regard to strong sustainability [START_REF] Lamberton | Accounting for sustainable development -A case study of city farm[END_REF][START_REF] Altukhova | Comptabilité agricole et développement durable: étude comparative de la Russie et de la France[END_REF][START_REF] Ionescu | Biodiversité et stratégie des organisations : construire des outils pour gérer des relations multiples et inter-temporelles[END_REF].

Other research has similar aims yet does not recommend integrating corporate analytical accounting. For example, there are proposals for life-cycle analysis methods to be extended to biodiversity and ecosystem services (Zhang et al. 2010a;Zhang et al. 2010b) as well as tools for assessing corporate and product biodiversity footprints, each of which is based on different scientific referencing system choices of pressures assessment (for example the "mean species abundance" unit in the case of Global Biodiversity Score tool, see CDC 2019; or the five biodiversity degradation drivers identified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Product Biodiversity Footprint, see [START_REF] Asselin | Product Biodiversity Footprint -A novel approach to compare the impact of products on biodiversity combining Life Cycle Assessment and Ecology[END_REF]. Full-cost accounting techniques for biodiversity measurement of hidden societal costs have also been identified and linked to ecosystem deterioration caused by commercial production operations [START_REF] Teeb | The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Business and Enterprise[END_REF][START_REF] Davies | Full cost accounting -integrating biodiversity[END_REF][START_REF] Kering | [END_REF]Chaplin-Kramer and Green,2016). On a broader level, it is possible to link this research domain to the development of new qualitative tools or ad-hoc quantitative evaluation of i) decision-making assistance and ii) risk analysis and iii) opportunities linked to aspects of corporate ecosystem interrelation. The bulk of these methods try to enhance conventional data accounting systems and their use in planning and strategic management of corporate operations vis-à-vis each business sector and its specific interdependencies on ecosystems (water sector; agriculture; cosmetics, etc.) (For comparative reviews of these different tools, see: [START_REF] Hanson | Nature in Performance: Initial Recommendations for Integrating Ecosystem Services into Business Performance System[END_REF][START_REF] Havas | Ecosystem services management tool development guidelines and framework revision for industries, industry policy makers and industry groups[END_REF][START_REF] Waage | Making the Invisible Visible: Analytical Tools for Assessing Business Impacts & Dependencies Upon Ecosystem Services[END_REF][START_REF] Addison | The development and use of biodiversity indicators in business: an overview[END_REF][START_REF] Lammerant | Assessment of biodiversity accounting approaches for business. Discussion paper for EU Business @ Biodiversity Platform[END_REF][START_REF] Ionescu | Capital naturel et stratégie des organisations: une visite guidée des outils[END_REF].

This field of research and innovation is also beset by much controversy. Critical literature in socio-environmental accounting notes above all the importance of interrogating metrics, modes of environmental and human-nature relations representation that are conveyed by these new accounting models. It also points to examination of management philosophy models and the underlying worldviews on which the are based [START_REF] Birkin | The ecological accountant: from the cogito to thinking like a mountain[END_REF][START_REF] Milne | On sustainability, the environment and management accounting[END_REF]. In relation to the performative nature of these developments and in the same way as for nationlevel green accounting, several decades of research into environmental accounting endeavours reiterate how difficult it is to ensure that innovation in this area is successfully adopted by corporations and then systematically applied by teams involved in post-pilot experiment [START_REF] Bebbington | An Account of Sustainability: Failure, Success and a Reconceptualization[END_REF][START_REF] Larrinaga-Gonzalez | Accounting change or institutional appropriation?-A case study of the implementation of environmental accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Herbohn | A full cost environmental accounting experiment[END_REF]. This becomes all the more true if such development reveals significant costs and underlying inconsistencies between the pursuit of economic goals and the aim of improving ecosystem performance. In turn, limitations of "business case" type approaches and the importance of developing complementary mandatory regulation are expressed [START_REF] Brown | Approaches and Perspectives in Social and Environmental Accounting : an Overview of the Conceptual Landscape[END_REF].

Finally, notwithstanding debate in this development field, a fundamental question remains besides -biodiversity management and how a corporation is almost always reliant upon other players in the field [START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF][START_REF] Ionescu | Biodiversité et stratégie des organisations : construire des outils pour gérer des relations multiples et inter-temporelles[END_REF]. How is it possible therefore to make sure that the pledges, organizational changes or production methods that a corporation develops for greater biodiversity accounting really do deliver quantifiable results to an ecosystem with which it and other stakeholders interact? This challenge again articulates the importance and complementary nature of ecosystem-centric management accounting (Text box 2).

Text box 2: Matters arising from corporate ecological management accounting and ecosystem-centric management accounting

Developments in corporate ecological management accounting could help corporations from different sectors define and implement strategies that facilitate reconciling transformation of their business models and production modes in a way that reduces their impact on biodiversity, while at the same time guaranteeing their corporate economic viability. From this point of view, links to ecosystem-centric management accounting expansion are considered necessary so that corporate strategic management is broadened and: (1) impact assessments are rewritten, as are expectation definitions and descriptions of what is appropriate for clearly defined ecosystem re-evaluation. This all takes place within the framework of collective agreement with other users of the same ecosystem; (2) the company can invest in the construction of a shared repository for assessing and monitoring ecosystem-centric environmental results (for example, inventory procedures and ecological indicators for monitoring biodiversity quality of the river mentioned above); (3) gauge as well as possible and have other stakeholders recognize the relative value of specific contributions made to delivering these environmental results (for example, by estimating action values in the reduction of pollutant discharge and desired outcomes of mortality rates within an amphibian population; or by estimating the value of river bank restoration measures in relation to increasing an aquatic bird species habitat, etc.); (4) thought is given to the cost of making these specific contributions, to assessing possible benefits which result from improving ecosystem function (for example, avoided cost of water purification) and negotiation on counterparts becomes possible with other involved public or private organizations (see work on the "Ecological contributions accounts" model, Feger 2016; Feger and Mermet 2018).

5) Corporate ecological balance sheet accounting: being accountable for pledges made to ecosystem preservation

The second business-level field we identify is corporate ecological balance sheet accounting. The proposal is to classify all research in this category that seeks to extend the scope of responsibility to natural capital. This comprises corporate accountability by including components relating to impact or to good corporate biodiversity management in balance sheet accounting practice. Jones' ground-breaking work reflects this outlook well (1996,2003) in terms of developing a natural inventory, a monitoring and a reporting model sought to provide oversight of stewardship within a biodiversity enterprise subjected to the model: "Organizations are stewards for the assets which they control, whether these assets be financial or non-financial. There is an underlying premise that organizations are accountable to society at large as well as to stakeholders for their stewardship of the environment. (Jones 2003, p. 764).

Developments in corporate ecological balance sheet accounting aim to answer questions which differ from those arising from corporate management accounting, given that in this instance they are not determined at a project dimension or on any particular scale of activity, but are raised at an organization's absolute scope level. How then are absolute scope and scope points defined for business biodiversity and ecosystem responsibility? How are regular assessments of corporate natural capital made and what efforts does a corporation make to manage it sustainably? What accountability is there to corporate stakeholders on the topic: public authorities, non-financial rating agencies, investors and civilians? Of greater concern is that these questions and this area of development are intrinsically linked to the challenge of standardizing extra-financial ecological accounting practice and revisiting the role, purposes and modes of governance of companies.

Developments in this field may be categorized in relation to two basic contentions: (1) methods and recommended integration magnitude within the same standardized report between non-financial accounting and financial accounting, and the varying degree to which these standards are legally constraining for the corporation's accountability to its external stakeholders (this deliberation relates to "integrated reporting": Eccles and Saltzman 2011; [START_REF] Busco | Redefining Corporate Accountability through Integrated Reporting: What happens when values and value creation meet[END_REF][START_REF] Iirc | The International <IR> Framework, International Integrated Reporting Council[END_REF][START_REF] Rambaud | The "Triple Depreciation Line" instead of the "Triple Bottom Line": Towards a genuine integrated reporting[END_REF][START_REF] Rambaud | Environnement et mesure de la performance[END_REF]Richard et al. 2018, c. 18); (2) the significance given to wanting to maintain natural capital versus wanting to maintain financial capital (it is here that the debate on weak sustainability arises -where displacement between capitals is possible. Indeed, strong sustainability requires separate preservation of each asset: [START_REF] Gray | Accounting and environmentalism: an exploration of the challenge of gently accounting for accountability, transparency and sustainability[END_REF][START_REF] Gray | Is accounting for sustainability actually accounting for sustainability...and how would we know? An exploration of narratives of organisations and the planet[END_REF]Richard 2012, p. 209-225;Altukhova 2013, p. 83-87;[START_REF] Rambaud | The "Triple Depreciation Line" instead of the "Triple Bottom Line": Towards a genuine integrated reporting[END_REF][START_REF] Rambaud | Environnement et mesure de la performance[END_REF]Richard et al. 2018, c. 18).

In addition, the stakes in corporate ecological balance sheet accounting are more crucial than in other spheres, ie, formalizing new standards and accounting principles, notwithstanding prevailing standards. It seems to be a matter of fact that conservation sciences and understanding acquired from that and other disciplines do nonetheless allow partial overlap for uniformity and regulation. Consequently, there is greater intelligibility within reporting formats with regard to impacts on and dependence upon ecosystems in other business sectors [START_REF] Kareiva | Improving global environmental management with standard corporate reporting[END_REF]; conversely, mainstreaming the implementation of these new accounting practices could be made mandatory to promote their adoption. This would apply also to corporations which do not have a specific interest in reporting poor natural capital management performance.

Here we set out two main developmental areas. Firstly, there is growing research which relates to non-financial reporting, a main theme in social and environmental accounting texts [START_REF] Gray | Corporate Reporting for Sustainable Development: Accounting for Sustainability in 2000 AD[END_REF][START_REF] Gray | Taking a Long View on What We Now Know About Social and Environmental Accountability and Reporting[END_REF][START_REF] Cho | The role of environmental disclosures as tools of legitimacy: A research note[END_REF][START_REF] Cho | Organized Hypocrisy, Organizational Façades, and Sustainability Reporting[END_REF], and its development into biodiversity.

Many different approaches have been put forward to absorb biodiversity indicators into

corporate Sustainable Development or Environmental reports, such as procedures for systematic natural world quality oversight, of habitats and of well-functioning ecosystems under corporate control or which are affected by an organisation's activity [START_REF] Jones | Accounting for biodiversity : a pilote study[END_REF][START_REF] Jones | Accounting for biodiversity: operationalising environmental accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Jones | Accounting for the environment: Towards a theoretical perspective for environmental accounting and reporting[END_REF][START_REF] Gri | Approach for reporting on ecosystem services. Incorporating ecosystem services into an organization's performance disclosure, Global Reporting Initiative[END_REF][START_REF] Gri | Approach for reporting on ecosystem services. Incorporating ecosystem services into an organization's performance disclosure, Global Reporting Initiative[END_REF][START_REF] Jones | Problematising accounting for biodiversity[END_REF][START_REF] Jones | Accounting for biodiversity[END_REF][START_REF] Thomson | Biodiversity, international conventions, government strategy and indicators: the case of the UK[END_REF], or metrics designed to show the link between a company's conduct and the extinction of certain species [START_REF] Atkins | Integrated extinction accounting and accountability: building an ark[END_REF].

However, recent critical worldwide research or conversely, interrogation centered upon a given country or sector of activity, highlight diversity and qualify the strength of current nonfinancial biodiversity reporting by pioneering companies. Generally speaking, they demonstrate that biodiversity data and detail have until now been quite broad and have offered scant quantifiable facts in Sustainable Development large corporation reports. The one exception comes from one of the most well-reported sectors -mining [START_REF] Van Liempd | Biodiversity reporting in Denmark[END_REF][START_REF] Rimmel | Biodiversity reporting in Sweden: corporate disclosure and preparers' views[END_REF][START_REF] Atkins | Corporate biodiversity reporting: exploring its anthropocentric nature[END_REF][START_REF] Samkin | Developing a reporting and evaluation framework for biodiversity[END_REF][START_REF] Boiral | Accounting for the Unaccountable: Biodiversity Reporting and Impression Management[END_REF][START_REF] Adler | United Nations Decade on Biodiversity: A study of the reporting practices of the Australian mining industry[END_REF][START_REF] Addison | Using conservation science to advance corporate biodiversity accountability[END_REF][START_REF] Adler | Biodiversity and threatened species reporting by the top Fortune Global companies[END_REF]. This not only reflects the still relatively low levels of commitment and accountability on the subject, but it also demonstrates the real difficulties that currently exist when measuring whether promises made -which are frequently unspecified and non-timebound, actually yield positive effect on nature or not [START_REF] Addison | Using conservation science to advance corporate biodiversity accountability[END_REF]) (See Text box 3).

Further research yields an additional line of investigation -wanting to factor in management-related components and maintenance and/or enhancement of ecological systems, which are seen as natural capital, in financial accounting. The challenge is therefore to define, measure and report (via balance sheet accounting) the contribution (positive or negative) made by natural capital to a corporation's assets and to delivering its economic and financial results over a given period (via its income statement).

For example, some of this field's schemes embrace the inclusion of physical elements related to dependence and impact of corporate activity on ecosystems in specifically designed natural capital accounts. These "mirror" current convention in financial accounting practice, and monetary items are then derived from these biophysical accounts for integration within its core [START_REF] Houdet | Le bilan biodiversité. Une méthodologie pour intégrer la nature dans votre comptabilité[END_REF][START_REF] Houdet | Accounting for biodiversity and ecosystem services from an EMA perspective: towards a standardised biodiversity footprint methodology[END_REF]. Others have developed practices designed to integrate natural capital value into the balance sheet, where natural capital is conceptualized as a current or future flow of ecosystem services subject to monetary valuation. To demonstrate this, reference is made to proposals to integrate avoided costs assessment by dint of ecosystem services provided by "green infrastructures", in particular for water sector industries [START_REF] Pickle | 21st Century Water Asset Accounting[END_REF]; or to [START_REF] Koshy | Method 1 -Integrating natural capital practices into financial accounting of intangible assets[END_REF] and [START_REF] Nicholls | Method 4 -Integrating natural capital into financial reporting[END_REF] develops an alternative approach to this notion of natural capital. It extends the logic of strong sustainability by giving the same importance to financial, human and natural capital and by calling as a consequence for fundamental changes in terms of models of corporate governance and power relations that underpin them. Its advocates define corporate natural capitals as a set of natural entities which correspond to a particular application within the corporate activity framework and which must then be preserved in the same way as the other types of capital used [START_REF] Rambaud | How accounting can reformulate the debate on the Natural Capital and help to implement its ecological conceptualisation[END_REF][START_REF] Rambaud | The "Triple Depreciation Line" instead of the "Triple Bottom Line": Towards a genuine integrated reporting[END_REF]Richard et al. 2018, c.18). As such, the CARE-TDL model suggests entry of natural capitals as liabilities (subsequently considered as ecological debts to be repaid). With balance sheet financial accounting, application of natural capitals should be entered as assets. The value of such natural capitals is then determined by assessing costs associated with ecological conservation and regeneration action needed to preserve them over time. Consequently, advocates suggest an integrated definition of financial result and therefore of profit also, the calculation of which could be carried out only once depreciation expenses for the uses of natural capitals (i.e. the costs of maintenance) are taken into consideration. This approach reflects the spirit of previous research on "Environmental Sustainable Costs accounting" [START_REF] Gray | Accounting and environmentalism: an exploration of the challenge of gently accounting for accountability, transparency and sustainability[END_REF][START_REF] Gray | Accounting for the Environment 2e éd[END_REF]. It is important here also to underline the challenges linked to development of ecosystem-centric accounting (see Text box 3).

Text Box 3: Matters arising from corporate ecological balance-sheet accounting and ecosystem-centric management accounting

Corporate environmental balance sheet accounting can address challenges of delivering environmental ecosystem preservation goals where underlying logic is regulation and redefinition of the remit of the collective -the corporation -and of the power dynamic and accountability that are part of its foundation [START_REF] Segrestin | Refonder l'entreprise[END_REF][START_REF]Revisiter la comptabilité pour refonder l'action collective[END_REF].

Consequently, development of ecosystem-centric management accounting can produce the essentials to better respond to current corporate challenges in terms of reporting precisely and conventionally on the efficacy of biodiversity pledges made [START_REF] Addison | Using conservation science to advance corporate biodiversity accountability[END_REF]. Such developments also represent an important adjunct to the development of the CARE-TDL model [START_REF] Rambaud | Method 3 -Comprehensive Accounting with Respect to Ecology (CARE) Model. In Improving nature's visibility in financial accounting[END_REF]. This would certainly bestow a strong accounting basis upon each ecosystem with which a corporation interacts (a biodiversity habitat area; water quality in a lake; fluvial biodiversity, etc). In addition, this would yield a diversity of activity contexts and stakeholder relations (or "representatives of natural capital" to use CARE-TDL's terminology):

(1) in the scientific definition and collective negotiation of the expected extent of preservation of natural capitals; (2) in monitoring corporation-initiated environmental activity performance to cushion natural capitals usage; (3) in budgeting and monitoring costs and expenses needed to carry out these actions and finally accounted for in the corporate balance sheet and income statement as part of integrated accounting provided by CARE-TDL.

Discussion and conclusion

One of the major challenges in the discussion of social and environmental accounting literature is predominantly the expression of obligatory corporate shift for factoring in natural capital and for directing operations toward delivering environmental outcomes. Secondly, there is the definition and representation at societal, national or even global level of environmental and sustainable development goals. These have to underpin collective effort and must work toward collective modes of organizing socio-economic activity in order to ensure the protection of the biosphere [START_REF] Gray | Accounting and environmentalism: an exploration of the challenge of gently accounting for accountability, transparency and sustainability[END_REF][START_REF] Gray | Is accounting for sustainability actually accounting for sustainability...and how would we know? An exploration of narratives of organisations and the planet[END_REF][START_REF] Milne | Accounting, environmental resource values, and non-market valuation techniques for environmental resources: A review[END_REF][START_REF] Milne | Downsizing Reg (me and you)! Addressing the 'real' sustainability agenda at work and home[END_REF][START_REF] Milne | Words not actions! The ideological role of sustainable development reporting[END_REF][START_REF] Milne | W(h)ither ecology? The triple bottom line, the global reporting initiative, and corporate sustainability reporting[END_REF]. How indeed can a corporation be held accountable for its attempts to protect ecosystems at a micro level, if at the same time we do not define the basis for assessment of these efforts in the delivery of environmental results at a macro level? Conversely, why deliberate and

Corporate ecological management accounting

e.g. [START_REF] Houdet | Entreprises, biodiversité et services écosystémiques. Quelles interactions et stratégies ? Quelles comptabilités ?[END_REF][START_REF] Houdet | Accounting for biodiversity and ecosystem services from an EMA perspective: towards a standardised biodiversity footprint methodology[END_REF][START_REF] Teeb | The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Business and Enterprise[END_REF]. NCC, 2016;Green et al., 2017;[START_REF] Eftec | Developing corporate natural capital accounts: Final report[END_REF][START_REF] Waage | Making the Invisible Visible: Analytical Tools for Assessing Business Impacts & Dependencies Upon Ecosystem Services[END_REF][START_REF] Davies | Full cost accounting -integrating biodiversity[END_REF][START_REF] Kering | [END_REF]Zhang et al., 2010aZhang et al., , 2010b;;Lammerant et al., 2018, etc.

Corporate ecological balance sheet accounting

e.g. [START_REF] Jones | Accounting for biodiversity : a pilote study[END_REF][START_REF] Jones | Accounting for biodiversity: operationalising environmental accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Jones | Accounting for the environment: Towards a theoretical perspective for environmental accounting and reporting[END_REF][START_REF] Gri | Approach for reporting on ecosystem services. Incorporating ecosystem services into an organization's performance disclosure, Global Reporting Initiative[END_REF][START_REF] Rambaud | The "Triple Depreciation Line" instead of the "Triple Bottom Line": Towards a genuine integrated reporting[END_REF][START_REF] Rambaud | Environnement et mesure de la performance[END_REF][START_REF] Kareiva | Improving global environmental management with standard corporate reporting[END_REF][START_REF] Thomson | Mapping the terrain of sustainability and accounting for sustainability[END_REF][START_REF] Adler | United Nations Decade on Biodiversity: A study of the reporting practices of the Australian mining industry[END_REF][START_REF] Addison | The development and use of biodiversity indicators in business: an overview[END_REF][START_REF] Atkins | Integrated extinction accounting and accountability: building an ark[END_REF]Capitals Coalition, 2020, etc.

Government natural capital accounting

e.g. [START_REF] Weber | Ecosystem Natural Capital Accounts: A Quick Start Package, Montreal: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity[END_REF][START_REF] Vanoli | Comptabilité nationale et prise en compte du patrimoine naturel[END_REF][START_REF] Waves | Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Service[END_REF]BoM, 2013;UNEP-WCMC, 2016;[START_REF] Edens | Towards a consistent approach for ecosystem accounting[END_REF][START_REF] Hein | Progress and challenges in the development of ecosystem accounting as a tool to analyse ecosystem capital[END_REF][START_REF] Hein | Progress in natural capital accounting for ecosystems[END_REF][START_REF] Mäler | Accounting for Ecosystem Services as a Way to Understand the Requirements for Sustainable Development[END_REF][START_REF] Gundimeda | Natural resource accounting for Indian states -Illustrating the case of forest resources[END_REF]Borucke et al., 2013, etc.

Ecosystem-centric management accounting

e.g. [START_REF] Dey | Who speaks for the river? Exploring biodiversity accounting using an arena approach[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Nouvelles comptabilités au service des écosystèmes. Une recherche engagée auprès d'une entreprise du secteur de l'environnement[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | A blueprint towards accounting for the management of ecosystems[END_REF][START_REF] Feger | Negotiating new commitments for the ecological transitions : An introduction to an Accounting for the management of ecosystems model[END_REF][START_REF] Cuckston | Ecology-centred accounting for biodiversity in the production of a blanket bog[END_REF][START_REF] Cuckston | Making Accounting for Biodiversity Research a Force for Conservation[END_REF][START_REF] Tregidga | Biodiversity offsetting: problematisation of an emerging governance regime[END_REF]Ionescu, 2016, etc. Through suggesting a framework for joint visualization of research domains and practice, which is more often than not addressed separately, we have sought clarity about concerns on elementary political and organizational discussion of accounting practice.

Underlying discussion and contentions Underlying discussion and contentions

Consequently, our typology highlights current differences between two major developmental areas of biodiversity accounting focused on private organizations on the one hand, and two major series of developments in accounting for biodiversity which focus upon collective entities (public and interorganizational), on the other. However, without claiming to redress differences here, our typology has allowed us primarily to underline areas of developmental diversity, challenges, debate and current argument which each distinguish the four major biodiversity and ecosystems accounting areas identified (see Figure 2). We have also demonstrated how each of They contribute to the increasing importance of biodiversity responsibility.

The arrival of ecosystem-centric management accounting practice in the wider national and corporate environmental accounting landscape has enabled differential discussion of such mutual dependence and of the viability of and necessity for progress within these different domains (see Text boxes 1, 2 and 3). Firstly, this makes it possible to create a new tier within accounting and collective organization practice. This then offers an essential addition to excessively linear links between government and corporate biodiversity accounting. Currently, these attempts have yielded no results owing mainly to the multiplicity of ecosystem types involved and metrics used for their assessment. This is also because of the great diversity of collective action contexts where ecological responsibilities are to be negotiated, assigned and controlled. It becomes impossible for a general equivalence to materialize that "would facilitate comparison of the multiplicity of human actions which affect [biodiversity]" (Godard 2005, p. 7) (see Figure 3, nexus-D). Secondly, focusing on conditions vital for achieving environmental results within each ecosystem or ecological entity which characterizes the field of ecosystemcentric accounting does invite particular reflection upon possible links this field has with developments in other fields, in particular those developments that focus on achieving key ecological performance indicators and on accounting for the essential expenditure and resources to achieve them. These all form part of strong sustainability (Text boxes 1, 2 and 3;

Figure 3).

However, progress towards greater linkage or indeed potential harmonization between these areas of accounting development will firstly require an intensification of research into conceptual and epistemological explanation within and between different domains (by carrying out, for example, a more perfected method for grading all definitions and methods which measure biodiversity, ecosystems and natural capital maintenance, and for classifying underlying philosophies, etc.). Secondly, there will be a need to advance in terms of developing greater theoretical understanding and experimentation with some of the State-level accounting models mentioned. This will apply also for corporations and interorganizational ecosystem management so as to stimulate deliberation of tangible compatibility requirements. Thirdly, this will require more empirical research tailored to each domain and which focuses upon i) change instigators, their social anthropology and their ability to promote and/or adopt these accounting developments for biodiversity (accounting professionals, managers, business leaders, national accountants and public policy decision-makers, scientists and conservation practitioners from NGOs or otherwise etc.), ii) scrutiny of resistance encountered, 27 iii) possible alliances between these different communities of "biodiversity conservation accountants", and iv) a solid base for their successful implementation in addition to or in lieu of current accounting practice.

Finally, this paper has focused on mere performative potential of biodiversity accounting developments. However, it is clear that developments in accounting alone will not provide an answer to the question of how to organize preservation of planetary ecosystems. Its reliance upon bona fide change in corporate accounting law seems unavoidable (see Section 5). This applies as much at a national level as it does for collective ecosystem management, where development of new accounting practices must be backed by strengthening environmental law.

In many circumstances, regulatory measures and developments in this field are still a vital source of underscoring realization of environmental performance objectives (via prohibitive action or via enactment of law on environmental thresholds, for example), and are critical to give value to i) certain land zones, ii) practices supporting biodiversity, or iii) the preservation of entire ecosystems through recognition of new areas such as non-human entities' rights [START_REF] Cabanes | Un nouveau droit pour la Terre. Pour en finir avec l'écocide[END_REF].

Corporate ecological management accounting

Transformative potential of strategy, activity, production method and corporate business models to deliver environmental performance objectives

Corporate ecological balance sheet accounting

Transformative potential of financial accounting to incorporate natural capitals preservation goals into the core of corporate mandate and governance

Government natural capital accounting

Potential for representation, institutionalisation and assessment by public bodies to observe ecological boundaries of an entire territory and allied preservation costs

  ) the use of evaluative information and calculative practices in a way that establishes or strengthens reciprocal commitments among various organizations concerned by a shared ecological issue; (2) the possibility to effectively enforce these inter-organizational accountabilities through accounts exchange; (3) the periodicity of account exchange practices and their maintenance over time; (4) the gradual routinization and technical equipment of these accountabilities and associated organizational practices."

  Additionally, in 2012 the United Nations Statistics Commission adopted the System of Environmental Economic Accounting "Central Framework" (SEEA-CF) which aims to widen the scope of the System of National Accounts (SNA) to include the environment -its concept is primarily as a source of input (natural resources) and as an output sink (emissions, pollution, waste, etc.) -this arose in addition to (UN 2014) a second submitted volume which focuses exclusively on experimental ecosystem accounting. Consequently, the latter acknowledges the specific nature of the challenge as well as the enduring argument between different schools of thought. It encourages research into new theoretical and functional approaches(EC 2013).In light of this fact, many techniques are currently in development testing throughout the world. Project diversity is demonstrated in: (1) programmes for assessing monetary value ecosystem utility for society and to the economy at a national level (eg costs obviated for water treatment; carbon storage, soil fertilization, etc.) -this stemmed from previous biophysical accounting set-ups. This pioneering work was developed by the Green Accounting for Indian States Project (GAISP) which offers a corrected version of Indian State accounting and of the GDP index -it takes into account loss or gain in monetary value associated with environmental degradation or renewal[START_REF] Gundimeda | Natural resource accounting for Indian states -Illustrating the case of forest resources[END_REF][START_REF] Sukhdev | The Economics of Nature[END_REF]; by the Wealth Assessment and Ecosystem Valuation of Ecosystem Services program (WAVES) which began in 2010 at the World Bank (WAVES 2014) and which supports pilot projects in several developing countries; or by the recently published natural capital accounts of The United Kingdom (ONS 2019) and The Netherlands[START_REF] Horlings | Experimental monetary valuation of ecosystem services and assets in the Netherlands[END_REF]. (2) Research from Ecosystem Natural Capital Accounts, or the ENCA-QSP model. This is founded on the inclusion of geo-localized land use databases as well as on environmental data and socio-economic statistics. The suggestion is to establish a new cumulative biophysical accounting unit (Ecosystem Capability Unit) making it possible to assess how well a country's ecosystems may support or renew themselves, given an annual decay ratio subsequent to human activity(Weber 2014a;[START_REF] Weber | Experimental Ecosystems Natural Capital Accounts: Mauritius Case Study. Methodology and premiminary results 2000-2010[END_REF]). (3) The Joint Perspective Model developed by the Australian Government 's Bureau of Meteorology which offers an innovative multidimensional theoretical approach (economic, human and cultural, living system and physical system) of Earth (BoM 2013). (4) Research similar to the SEEA-EEA framework and which covers the development of accounting systems that are more centered upon animal and plant species (ie type, number, habitats size etc.) (UNEP-WCMC 2016), or on a specific environmental compartment such as rivers[START_REF] Nel | National River Ecosystem Accounts for South Africa[END_REF] or coral reefs (ABoS 2015) in a particular country.

  systematic schemes in the recent report that the Capitals Coalition (2020) instigated: Improving nature's visibility in financial accounting. Research on the CARE-TDL model (Comprehensive Accounting in Respect of Ecology-Triple Depreciation Line) (Richard 2012; Rambaud 2015a; Rambaud and Richard 2015)

Figure 2 :

 2 Figure 2: Discussion and debate in literature specific to each area of development in accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems

  these areas represents a specific view of what constitutes the fundamental driver of environmental change. Nevertheless, if each of these fields of thought and development can legitimately claim to possess transformative ideals, then ultimately none of them can achieve it by itself, and the four areas seem ultimately and extremely reciprocal and mutually dependent.

Figure 3 :

 3 Figure 3: Major challenges in interlinking the four areas of accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems development (in a strong sustainability perspective)

  Provision of a report on overall corporate environmental activity results arising from oversight of the merit of contributions made to each ecosystem on which the firm depends/has impact (C.2) Management of all activity relating to corporate natural capitals, budgeting and monitoring of attendant maintenance costs (A.1) Assignment and monitoring of environmental maintenance/regeneration responsibilities to various stakeholder groups at each ecosystem level (A.2) Macro level identification and recognition of collective ecological outcomes delivered locally including actual costs incurred doing so

  at a macro level, accounting illustrations of the overall value of ecosystems, their degradation and environmental boundaries that must be respected in order to deliver territorial or planetary sustainability, if we also fail to translate this into responsibility for and contribution to tangible steps via properly identified organizations which operate within one or more

	individual ecosystems?
		-Aggregation and representation
	-Interdisciplinary dialogue	conventions for ecosystem
	between accounting researchers and conservation scientists -Support for the strategic use of	values -Weak sustainability (monetary evaluation of ecosystem services) vs
	existing ecological information systems	strong sustainability (biophysical assessment and/or debts and
	-Definition of appropriate scope and ecological results and values	ecosystem regeneration costs) -Degree of integration into the
	to be created	national accounting vs autonomous
	-Design of new accounting	satellite accounting
	models dedicated to the	-Decision-making application
	collective ecosystem	drafting of public policy,
	management	and accountability of those in power
	-Integration into existing analytical accounting models	-Extra-financial biodiversity reporting vs incorporation with
	vs ad-hoc methods and tools	financial accounting
	-Methods (biophysical,	-Weak sustainability (fungibility of
	monetary, etc.) and scope of	capital) vs strong (conservation of
	application (operation site, value	each type of capital)
	chain, etc.)	-Harmonization of ecological
	-Economic viability of activity vs	reporting standards
	ecological performance	-Degree of transformation of
	improvement	existing accounting standards
	-Degree of adoption and	-Considerations on corporate
	utilization of development	governance, goals and accountability

suggest