Global initiatives to develop plant-based alternatives across industries, particularly food, energy, materials, and healthcare, open the way to new sustainable opportunities but also raise a series of ethical and environmental dilemmas. The chapter examines the complexities surrounding the development and introduction of plant-based systems in the context of biopiracy, safeguarding of indigenous knowledge, access to knowledge, and maintenance of biodiversity. It looks not only at the environmental trade-offs in land use, monoculture, and water consumption and carbon emissions, but also at the socio-economic consequences for food security, rural livelihoods, and cultural values. There is a gap in regulation and governance, and the focus is on certification, policy coherence, and corporate responsibility. The chapter demonstrates the tangled relationship between innovation and ethical stewardship, using real-world case studies of everything at hand, including soy production in the Amazon, plant-based meat substitutes, and bioplastics. Lastly, it proposes actionable and integrative solutions for designing and creating global plant-based diversity initiatives that are locally situated, equitable, transparent, ecologically sound, and just to all living people.