Major investment in business challenges linked to biodiversity
A new knowledge environment focusing on the challenges of biodiversity is forming in Gothenburg. Disseminating knowledge to organizations and businesses is part of the initiative, which recently received support from Region Västra Götaland for a three-year collaborative project.
The human impact on nature and its consequences for our future existence have moved up the global policy agenda and into the board rooms of large businesses and financial institutions. The role of these organizations in the ongoing biodiversity loss crisis is unquestionable and they are now stepping up as key partners in the pursuit of finding sustainable solutions to limiting their negative impact and finding new ways to protect nature.
The research programme BIOPATH started last autumn, with funding from MISTRA. The programme addresses the business world's challenges linked to biodiversity. At the end of 2022, Region Västra Götaland decided to enter with another major investment aimed at spreading knowledge about companies' impact and dependence on biodiversity – the SamBio project.
What these projects have in common is that they are conducted as interdisciplinary collaborations where researchers in business, economics and ecology work together to increase knowledge, and to develop new models for the promotion of biodiversity.
“We are building a completely new knowledge environment around what could be viewed as one of the most important issues of our time. It is exciting to work with specialists from so many different disciplines who are all driven by finding new ways to spread knowledge about biodiversity to organisations and companies. We all believe that this will make a difference, and it can establish Gothenburg as a central hub for research and development around business with a high degree of ecosystem integrity,” says Viktor Elliot, researcher at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, and participant in both projects.
Hub for knowledge sharing
Since 2017 the Gothenburg Center for Global Biodiversity Studies (GGBC) has functioned as a hub for knowledge sharing and competence development in Gothenburg. The center is hosted by the University of Gothenburg and is based on a collaboration between eighteen partners, within and outside the academy, who work with biodiversity in different ways. The goal is to link researchers, decision-makers and the public around issues related to biological diversity, and to expand and further develop research on the subject.
“I am very pleased that the School of Business, Economics and Law is taking a more central role in the work around biodiversity,” says Jenny Klingberg, director of the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre.
