Ecocide is becoming a crime and your board needs to understand what that means
The criminalisation of mass environmental destruction is no longer a fringe legal theory. It is entering national law across Europe, being proposed at the International Criminal Court, and it is moving faster than most boards realise.
A concept whose time has come
For most of modern corporate history, environmental violations have been treated as administrative matters – fines, remediation orders, licence conditions. Serious, occasionally costly, but fundamentally regulatory in character. The emerging law of ecocide changes that calculus entirely. Ecocide – broadly defined as the widespread, severe or systematic destruction of ecosystems – is being codified as a criminal offence and the penalties attaching to it are not administrative. They are criminal. They attach to individuals. They attach to the people who authorised the conduct, signed off on the strategy and sat on the board when the decisions were made.
The concept is not new. The term 'ecocide' was first recorded at the Conference on War and National Responsibility in Washington in 1970 and was used by Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme at the first UN Conference on the Environment in 1972, in the context of Agent Orange use in Vietnam. From the 1970s onwards, many academics and legal scholars argued for the criminalisation of ecocide.[1] What is new is the political and legal momentum that has built in the last five years and the speed at which that momentum is translating into binding law.
Where the law already stands
This is not a distant prospect. Belgium has already enacted ecocide as a crime in its new penal code, with penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment for individuals and fines of up to €1.6 million for corporations. France introduced a national ecocide offence in 2021, providing for up to 10 years imprisonment for those committing offences which 'cause serious and lasting damage to health, flora, fauna or the quality of the air, soil or water.' The French law also places an obligation on the government to report to parliament on its action to secure recognition of ecocide as an international crime.[2] Multiple former Soviet states – including Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan – already have ecocide provisions in their criminal codes, with sentences of up to 20 years.
At the EU level, the Environmental Crime Directive requires all 27 member states to introduce criminal provisions for environmental destruction comparable to ecocide by May 2026. Germany published its implementing draft legislation in October 2025.[3] Scotland's parliament voted 90 to 26 to progress an Ecocide Prevention Bill introduced by Monica Lennon MSP, with the relevant committee recognising that ecocide must be treated as 'grave criminal wrongdoing.'[4]
The legal definition and its implications
The legal definition that underpins most of this legislative activity was developed in 2021 by an independent panel of top international criminal and environmental lawyers convened by Stop Ecocide Foundation. It defines ecocide as 'unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused.' This definition has been formally proposed as an amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa.[5]
The phrase 'with knowledge' is critical. It means that what decision-makers knew, when they knew it and what they chose to do with that knowledge is the foundation of criminal culpability. The definition does not require intent to destroy – only that the person in question knew, or ought to have known, that the substantial likelihood of severe damage existed. This sets a standard that most senior executives in environmentally intensive industries already meet in terms of available information. The science of environmental risk has been extensively documented for decades. The argument that a board did not know is becoming harder to sustain.
Ecocide law is not a reputational issue for the sustainability team. It is a governance issue for the board.
What boards should be doing now
For boards and management teams, the implications are practical and immediate. The first question is whether your organisation's activities – or the activities of your supply chain – create material exposure to the emerging definition of ecocide. The second is whether your environmental management systems are operating at a standard that demonstrates genuine due diligence. The third is whether you have independent, documented evidence of that standard – not self-reported assurances, but verified, auditable proof that would withstand examination in a criminal proceeding.
The fourth question, which fewer boards are asking, is whether your disclosure accurately reflects your environmental impacts. Misrepresentation of environmental performance is not just a reputational issue in this new legal environment – it compounds the underlying liability. A company that destroys an ecosystem and then misrepresents what happened faces a more serious position than one that destroyed the ecosystem and disclosed it accurately. Boards that are treating environmental disclosure as a communications exercise rather than a legal document are accumulating risk on two fronts simultaneously.
Ecocide law is not a reputational issue for the sustainability team. It is a governance issue for the board. The time to understand it is before it becomes personal.
References
[1] Stop Ecocide International, 'FAQs – Ecocide and the Law: History and Background'. https://www.stopecocide.earth/faqs-ecocide-the-law
[2] Ecocide Law, 'Existing and Proposed Ecocide Laws – France and Belgium'. https://ecocidelaw.com/existing-ecocide-laws/
[3] Pohlmann & Company, 'Bill to Amend Environmental Criminal Law by Implementing the Ecocide Directive' (6 November 2025). https://www.pohlmann-company.com/en/bill-to-amend-environmental-criminal-law-by-implementing-the-ecocide-directive/
[4] Stop Ecocide International, 'Scottish Parliament Votes to Progress Ecocide Prevention Bill' (2025). https://www.stopecocide.earth/
[5] Stop Ecocide International / Independent Expert Panel, 'Legal Definition of Ecocide' (June 2021). https://www.stopecocide.earth/ecocide-law