Nordea to donate EUR 200,000 to research with focus on biodiversity impact in the Nordic countries
Nordea’s donation will support the University of Jyväskylä’s four-year research programme in developing open-access methods for assessing the biodiversity footprint of economic activities. The University of Jyväskylä is one of the leading universities in Europe in the field of biodiversity research and has conducted groundbreaking research on how consumption accounts can be used to understand the carbon and biodiversity footprint of any organisation. The research will address challenges and opportunities in assessing the biodiversity dependency and impact of economic activity in the Nordic countries, with local as well as global value chains. It will cover the sectors that are particularly impactful and/or vulnerable in relation to biodiversity loss such as real estate.
The research and its findings including data will be openly accessible to all stakeholders and thereby contribute to the sustainability transition in the Nordic societies. By supporting biodiversity-related footprint research Nordea strives to contribute to enhanced understanding in the corporate and financial sector and society at large of nature in the Nordic region. Biodiversity loss is one of the key challenges of our time and is directly driven by society’s impact via land- and sea-use change, direct exploitation of natural resources, climate change, pollution and invasive species. Consumption habits, ways of production and trade patterns determine where in the world the impact is most severe, and this is an area where we need to grow our understanding.
“Biodiversity is rapidly rising on the agenda as the next big sustainability topic after climate. We’re focused on building our capacity to address this at Nordea to be able to support the transition of companies in the Nordic countries to reduce negative and increase positive impact on nature. This research will give valuable insights to this work and will support financial institutions’ decision-making and support for our customers in the transition,” says Anja Hannerz, Head of Group Sustainability at Nordea.
The University of Jyväskylä collaborates with acknowledged science partners in Finland, e.g. Natural Resources Institute Finland, Finnish Environment Institute and The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra. It has also worked with international companies, e.g. Nokia, and with research teams around the world.
“We are excited about the donation, which will allow us to broaden our research scope and conduct ambitious research in the Nordics and globally. The latest scientific knowledge highlights that nature-oriented solutions can have various co-benefits for climate, water, food and health. Biodiversity footprint assessment can help financial institutions, organisations and society in identifying key focus areas and what kind of actions help in stopping biodiversity loss,” explains Janne Kotiaho, Professor at the University of Jyväskylä and Chair of the Finnish Nature Panel.
About the University of Jyväskylä Biodiversity Footprint Team
• World-class knowledge and experience of developing and assessing the biodiversity footprint of entities.
• Past and ongoing biodiversity footprint calculation experience with companies like Nokia and Finnish construction company SRV and retailer S-Group as well as the city of Tampere and the city of Espoo.
• Cooperation with other Nordic, European and global universities.
For further information
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We are a universal bank with a 200-year history of supporting and growing the Nordic economies – enabling dreams and aspirations for a greater good. Every day, we work to support our customers’ financial development, delivering best-in-class omnichannel customer experiences and driving sustainable change. The Nordea share is listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki, Nasdaq Copenhagen and Nasdaq Stockholm exchanges. Read more about us at nordea.com.
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