Curious to know what Judith Walls and Kerrigan Unter have been up to in terms of biodiversity data when it comes to unblocking the information flow to companies, NGOs, governments and civil society?

With this Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) grant, they spent 18 months studying this topic, in collaboration with Luca Fumagalli and PJ Stephenson at the University of Lausanne, Maria Cecilia Londoño and Jorge Amador Moncada at the Humboldt Institute in Colombia, and Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu and Louise Sawyerr at the Centre for Biodiversity Conservation Research, University of Ghana.

From the business angle, they have been working with data from Spatial Risk Systems and Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT) as data partners in this project.

The video explains it all!

Why does Austria have more than 1’300 wind turbines while there are less than 50 in Switzerland? Read more about this empirical puzzle in a new article published by Dr. Nina Schneider and Prof. Dr. Adrian Rinscheid:

• Qualitative content analysis and discourse network analysis of 808 newspaper articles.

• Identifying four distinct storylines used to delegitimize or legitimize wind energy.

• Delegitimizing storylines are more prevalent in the Swiss discourse.

• In Austria, there is more consistent support for wind energy in the public discourse.

• Conceptually bridging research on technology legitimacy and social acceptance of innovations.

As part of our joint SNSF project on ‘How green transformational leaders engage stakeholders to tackle environmental grand challenges in the context of circular economy’, we are looking for an external PhD student who will be hosted and co-supervised by the Center for Corporate Responsibility at the Zurich University of Applied Science (ZHAW).

Within this position, you have the chance to pursue a PhD degree from the University of St.Gallen as an external candidate at the Chair of Sustainability Management, while working as a research assistant at ZHAW and conduct research in our joint SNSF project.

This SNSF project is a joint collaboration between the University of St.Gallen (HSG), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), and the University of Applied Sciences for Business Administration Zurich (HWZ). It aims to improve our understanding of why, when, and how organizational leaders engage stakeholders to tackle environmental grand challenges in the context of circular economy.

For more information on this position, please check => corresponding job ad or reach out to Prof. Dr. Christian Vögtlin (christian.voegtlin@zhaw.ch). Only applications via the official ZHAW job portal will be considered.

Congratulations to MaCSHSG alumna Martina Rothenberger (left) for winning the 1st prize of the 2023 #SAEE student awards. The Swiss Association for Energy Economics (SAEE) awarded her Master’s thesis “Heart over mind in environmental politics? The role of affective and cognitive factors in the political decision-making process of the Swiss CO2 law”, highlighting the important role of emotions in climate policy. We are very proud of our Alumna!!!

In this new publication in Business Strategy and the Environment, Julia Loder, Adrian Rinscheid, and Rolf Wüstenhagen investigate some underlying factors associated with variation in electrification strategies of German car manufacturers. The authors focus on firms’ dynamic capabilities—in particular, their ability to sense low-carbon risks and opportunities in a changing business environment. Building on qualitative interviews, they gauge sensing capabilities through industry executives’ cognitive frames. The analysis reveals striking differences in the way executives perceive the opportunities and risks associated with electric mobility. In particular, firms’ dynamic capabilities to shape the low-carbon transition are tied to their conceptions of consumer preferences and the economics of the transition, their perception of network embeddedness, prior experiences with technological innovation, and leadership.

In the new SCOPES report, produced by Prof. Judith Walls and Zsuzsa Borsa in collaboration with the  Institut für Marketing und Customer Insight,  Publicis and Grownate, we show how companies tackle the challenges of sustainability communication as well as how Swiss consumers perceive their actions.

The report covers three key topics:

• A ranking of 100 Swiss companies based on 5555 consumers’ perception of their sustainability activities
• A quantitative analysis of drivers of consumers’ perceptions of sustainability
• A qualitative, multiple case-study analysis of the challenges facing – and approaches taken by- companies to sustainability communication

Our most important findings?

We were able to demonstrate that consumers often do not have a clear picture of company’s sustainability efforts.

Consumers’ perceptions of corporate sustainability are influenced by factors such as the company’s origin, or industry in which they operate, but also by key events and greenwashing accusations.

Protecting themselves from greenwashing is a challenging task for companies when communicating to consumers and other stakeholders.

While both branding and sustainability departments communicate on sustainability, their goals are often different when targeting consumers versus other stakeholders. For example, consumer communication needs a simple and clear message while sustainability communication to other stakeholders needs to be detailed and transparent. Companies adopt various strategies to overcome this gap, such as emphasizing partnerships with NGOs and external organizations that have strong sustainability reputations, to build credibility and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.

The report is available for download at: www.scopes.report

After 8 years our dear colleague Prof. Dr. Merla Kubli accepted a tenure-track assistant professor of System Dynamics for Policy Analysis at TU Delft | Technology, Policy and Management faculty at Delft University of Technology. We wish her all the very best for her next career step and will be missing her lots!

An introduction to the concept by ⁦‪@gellis23⁩ ⁦‪@NinaMarxgut⁩ ⁦‪@wuestenhagen⁩ featuring many of the ⁦‪@ItnMistral⁩ researchers. MISTRAL (Multi-sectoral approaches to Innovative Skills Training for Renewable energy & sociAL acceptance) trains a new generation of researchers who evaluate the complexity of social acceptance issues facing the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure, and propose innovative solutions in a variety of research, government and business contexts.

Abstract
A step change is needed in the deployment of renewable energy if the triple challenge of ensuring climate change mitigation, energy security, and energy affordability is to be met. Yet, social acceptance of infrastructure projects and policies remains a key concern. While there has been decades of fruitful research on the social acceptance of wind energy and other renewables, much of the extant research is cross-sectional in nature, failing to capture the important dynamic processes that can make or break renewable energy projects. This paper introduces a Special Issue of Energy Policy which focusses on the neglected topic of the dynamics of social acceptance of renewable energy, drawing on contributions made at an international research conference held in St. Gallen (Switzerland) in June 2022. In addition to introducing these papers and drawing out common themes, we also seek to offer some conceptual clarity on the issue of dynamics in social acceptance, taking into account the influence of time, power, and scale in shaping decision-making processes. We conclude by highlighting a number of avenues of potential future research.