Biodiversity Risk and Customer Concentration

ABSTRACT Biodiversity risk profoundly affects business organizations. From the perspective of supply chain management, this paper empirically examines the impact of biodiversity risk on customer concentration and its channel mechanism using data from Chinese A‐share listed companies from 2011 to 2023. It has been found that biodiversity risk can significantly reduce corporate customer concentration. This finding holds after a series of endogeneity and robustness tests. The mechanism test revealed that biodiversity risk reduces corporate dependence on large customers by decreasing customer relationship stability and promoting diversification strategies. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the weakening effect of biodiversity risk on corporate customer concentration is more prominent among firms that are non–state‐owned, have executives with overseas backgrounds, are not in heavily polluting industries, and are from the east‐central region of China. Additionally, the negative correlation between biodiversity risk and customer concentration can be enhanced by governments establishing a market‐oriented, law‐based, and internationalized business environment. This study contributes to characterizing the association between biodiversity risk and customer concentration and provides insights to better prevent and resolve supply chain disruptions due to biodiversity risk.