Business and Biodiversity: Scaling Conservation Enterprises Within and Beyond Place for Transformative Change

Transformative change is required to address persistent and systemic drivers of biodiversity loss. There is an urgent need for innovative solutions that tackle root causes in place‐specific contexts. Evidence indicates that small, innovative, purpose‐driven businesses can serve as vehicles for developing place‐based solutions. However, such solutions need to be scaled beyond place to enact widespread transformative change. The need to be both rooted in place and scalable beyond place represents a place‐based scaling paradox. This research examines how conservation enterprises committed to transformative change scale within and beyond their places. Using an inductive multi‐case qualitative approach, we analyze the scaling strategies of five enterprises working to conserve aquatic ecosystems. Our findings identify three themes that link pressures to scale, scaling tensions, and scaling strategies for transformative change outcomes. These themes are synthesized into a model that explains how enterprises synchronize internal and external reorganization to navigate the place‐based scaling paradox.