Please find the conference programme below.
RBRC 2025 Programme including workshop sessions (pdf)
Wednesday 12.3.
10:00–10:30 Registration, coffee
10:30–10:45 Welcome: Professor Johanna Kujala and Vice President Tapio Visakorpi, Tampere University (Pinni B1100 / Zoom)
10:45–12:00 Keynote speech: Dr. Rajat Panwar – “Frontiers in Corporate Sustainability: Where Do We Go from Here?” (Pinni B1100 / Zoom)
12:00–13:00 Lunch
13:00–15:00 Workshop 1
15:00–15:30 Coffee
15:30–17:30 Workshop 2
18:00– Conference dinner
Thursday 13.3.
8:30-10:00 Workshop 3
10:00–10:30 Coffee
10:30-12:30 Workshop 4
12:30–13:30 Lunch
13:30–15:00 Panel discussion – The futures of business-biodiversity relationship (Pinni B1100 / Zoom)
15:00– Closing and the best conference paper award (Pinni B1100 / Zoom)
Dr. Rajat Panwar
Rajat Panwar is a Professor of Responsible and Sustainable Business Management at Oregon State University, USA. A native of India, Dr. Panwar is an interdisciplinary scholar holding two doctoral degrees: a PhD in Forestry and a DBA in Sustainability and Strategy. He has published extensively in business, forestry, and interdisciplinary journals, as well as in practitioner-oriented outlets such as California Management Review and Harvard Business Review.
Dr. Panwar is a lead author for the “Business and Biodiversity” assessment by the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the National Nature Assessment being conducted by the US government. He has contributed to multiple United Nations regional and global reports and co-edited two books.
Dr. Panwar is a versatile educator who has taught at undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels across Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. His teaching focuses on corporate sustainability, corporate responsibility, and international business management.
Dr. Panwar is the Deputy Editor of the journal Business & Society and is a member of the editorial boards for Business Strategy & the Environment, Business Strategy & Development, and Organization & Environment. He is the President-Elect of the International Association for Business and Society (IABS) and is on a five-year leadership track with the Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division of the Academy of Management, where he currently serves as Program Chair.
Panelists of the panel discussion – The futures of business-biodiversity relationship
Dr. Rajat Panwar
(Please see bio and picture above)
Laura Albareda 
Laura Albareda, Professor of Sustainable Business and Entrepreneurship at LUT University Business School. Her research focuses on business collective action, commons organizing – commoning – and polycentric governance. She applies these concepts to business-nature regeneration, climate futures, bioeconomy and circular economy. Laura is lead researcher of the project “Action4Commons” theorizing on collective stakeholder action on biodiversity in the mining sector. She sits on the board of the “Sustainable Circularity of Inorganic Materials Research Platform” (SCI-MAT) at LUT University. Laura is PI of EU Horizon Europe projects, RELIEF and REINFORCE exploring circular business models of Lithium-Ion Batteries for electrical cars, PRIMED on waste valorization and bioeconomy value chains. Her research on Polycentric governance of privately owned resources in circular economy systems has been awarded by the AOM Dexter Award Best International Paper (2019) Best Business Ethics Paper (2019) and RRBM Distinguished Winner of Responsible Research in Management Award (2023), co-sponsored by the Academy of Management Fellows Group. Her latest article at Journal of Management Studies: Biocentric Work on the Anthropocene: How actors regenerate degenerated natural commons.
Anne Quarshie
Anne Quarshie works as an Assistant Professor of Biodiversity and Business at Turku School of Economics, Department of Management and Entrepreneurship. Her research interests include sustainable, biodiversity-respectful, and regenerative business and supply chain management, interorganizational interactions, and disaster response. She is involved in the BIODIFORM and BIODIFUL research consortia, which investigate the interface between biodiversity and business. Her research has received recognitions such as the IPSERA Best Doctoral Dissertation in Purchasing Award 2017, and her articles have appeared e.g. in the Journal of Business Ethics, Organization & Environment, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, and Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management. She teaches sustainable and nature-respectful business at Turku School of Economics and the Finnish Doctoral Program in Business Studies (KATAJA). https://www.utu.fi/en/people/anne-quarshie
