The Business of Nature - Why Taking Notes from Nature’s Playbook Makes Economic Sense. Rethinking Values at Quinta da Bufala
In the rolling hills of Sintra, where cork oak, wild herbs, and morning mists create an ever-changing symphony of biodiversity, a special project took root ten years ago, Quinta da Bufala.
It’s a testament to the trials and triumphs of building an event and experiences venue from the ground up, from what was, in 2015, a wasteland of debris. But it is also a living statement that showcases how a business can co-exist in nature, mirroring its ability to sustain and evolve, not degrade, its home and place. On some level, it also frames a future choice for any business in a world that can no longer afford to ignore the values and learnings gifted by nature.
Despite some disturbing signs of our times and degrees of disinformation, the environmental stakes are high but not yet insurmountable. We know that half of global GDP — $44 trillion — is moderately or highly dependent on nature, from pollination to water purification, carbon sequestration to soil fertility. And yet, we are treating this capital as if it were expendable.
One million species face extinction within decades. Pollinators are disappearing. Forests are vanishing. Soils are depleting. And while this is often framed as an environmental issue, it is more fundamentally an economic one and therefore critically strategic for corporations. The future cash flows of businesses — and communities — are intertwined with the survival of nature - and so too humanity, in the final analysis.
At Quinta da Bufala, this isn't an abstract concern. It's the foundation of the project. Located in the rich, green hills of Sintra, the Quinta has been reimagined as a regenerative estate — a working organic farm, corporate and retreat venue, and emerging off-site destination of choice for companies that understand creativity, innovation, and wellbeing are often not found in conference rooms, but in deeper connection and communion with the living world. When you pass through its gates, it’s hard to believe that nature is under attack as you scan the velvet coated mountains of Portugal’s personal garden of Eden.
The site itself is fully self-sufficient, organic in food production, and to date, the project has planted some 800 trees with more to follow. There is a collective zero waste policy so that every action is assessed for impact and even its decorations become “edible.” Every decision, from materials to design and build was measured against key criteria. In short nature is revered and celebrated equally, making that choice to visit easy for like minded leaders, their businesses and teams.
One Quinta question being asked here is simple, but profound: what if nature wasn’t an externality in business, but a central operating system, upon which any business utterly depended? It is from that point that future decision should be made.
The Price of Ignoring Nature
According to Paula DiPerna, author of Pricing the Priceless, companies have been operating under a dangerous illusion: that nature's services — clean air, pollination, soil health, biodiversity — come free. "We’re getting away with not paying nature, the ultimate worker," she points out. But as bee burglaries in California illustrate, nature’s value is starting to show up in supply chains, insurance risks, legal exposure, and reputational damage.
For Quinta da Bufala, this frames a key principle: design with — not around — nature. In Sintra, this means protecting native species, restoring degraded soils, planting trees, and integrating food forests and agroecology as part of a landscape experience for a myriad of guests. It's not just about aesthetics or ethics. It's risk management. It's asset resilience. And it is value creation for future generations.
Our Carbon Complex
The climate agenda has helped businesses wake up to its environmental footprint, but nature’s agenda is more complex and localised. Unlike carbon, which is globally fungible, you can’t destroy a forest in Brazil and plant a few trees in Scotland and call it even. Biodiversity is place-specific. It resists simplification and to work it requires commitment and action in that place.
That’s why Quinta da Bufala is rooted in what we believe is a deeper listening — to the land, to local knowledge, and to ecological data. Its model draws on regenerative design principles that restore ecosystems while supporting long-term social and economic value.
And as Portugal ramps up its green funding commitments under the EU’s Green Deal, this approach encourages a value system that should still resonate with clients and individuals - for those that have not lost the will to care or look away, as outdated ideas have come full circle and contaminated the future, laced with greed, and short-termism.
Rethinking Business Retreats
Too often perhaps, corporate off-sites are escapes — dislocated from place, even extracting value from local landscapes without reinvesting in them. Quinta da Bufala, from the outset, has grounded itself in a sustainable framework that looks to nature as a guide, a healer, noting our place in the natural world and our responsibilities as stewards to the land.
By embedding biodiversity into its offer, the Quinta invites businesses to reconnect not just with each other, but with the systems that make their proposition possible in the first place. Sessions might include soil-to-table meals grown on site, creativity sessions that utilise the settings to seed deeper original thinking and openness, or forest workshops on nature-based decision-making. These aren’t wellness gimmicks. They are immersive experiences designed to shift mindsets, quieten the ego, and build empathetic leadership, more open to accountability.
A Natural Balance Sheet
One inspiring example comes from Puma, which introduced an internal “environmental profit-and-loss account” in 2011. It found that against €202 million in earnings, their environmental costs totalled €145 million. Few companies are brave enough to do the same — but that’s changing, thanks to frameworks like TNFD and a new wave of sustainable finance tools such as forest resilience bonds and biodiversity-linked investments.
Quinta da Bufala plans to explore a nature-based balance sheet of its own. Tracking biodiversity indicators, ecosystem health, and regenerative impacts are becoming part of how it communicates value to guests and partners. Because at heart, this project is an invitation to measure success not just in financial returns, but in life returning to the land.
Towards a New Normal
It is becoming clearer that the ongoing loss of biodiversity is a greater danger to human life than carbon emissions. At the Quinta, that truth is taken seriously — and joyfully. Because regeneration is not about guilt. It’s about potential and possibility. They neatly distill into purpose, one quietly tended in everyday actions, not shouted or to showcase ESG creds but to live them as best we can.
As the world’s businesses, investors, and communities awaken to the cost of undervaluing nature, the Quinta offers a model for another way forward — where nature is not a backdrop to business, nor taken for granted, but a recognition of resource and resilience, as abundance and beauty yes, but also the very reason it can thrive if we work together.
