Come do a PhD in business biodiversity footprinting at the Melbourne Biodiversity Institute!

Bringing business biodiversity footprinting into the 21st century

Biodiversity footprinting is an important tool in nature ‘materiality’ and impact assessment. Footprinting of on-site and supply-chain impacts of business on biodiversity is a rapidly growing field as business ESG reporting starts to consider how business activities impact biodiversity and how impacts can be mitigated.

While GHG and climate change risk reporting present their own set of challenges, gauging biodiversity impacts and dependencies, and assessing mitigation options is even more complex because biodiversity is multi-dimensional (genes, species, ecosystems) and place-based concept (biodiversity holds different significance to people from different places and cultures).

There are many different measures of biodiversity that capture different aspects from genes to ecosystem, and the different meaning they hold to people in different contexts.

We are developing an action-research agenda for improving and trialling footprinting approaches across a number of sectors including financial services, agriculture, tertiary education, and construction. The rising demand for biodiversity footprint analyses is driven by multinational corporations’ growing commitments to biodiversity conservation in response to the global biodiversity crisis.

We’re seeking a PhD student to address knowledge gaps and make a critical contribution to biodiversity footprinting in:

1. Reviewing the applicability of GHG footprinting methods and frameworks in biodiversity footprinting.
2. Developing improved biodiversity cause-effect models to synthesise existing ecological knowledge about the relationship between business activities, mid-point pressures (land-use change, pollution, climate change) and end-point biodiversity impacts.
3. Develop investment portfolio biodiversity risk assessment methods that draw together investment decision support tools and biodiversity indices.

This project will be undertaken in collaboration with researchers across multiple universities and in collaboration with businesses, providing opportunities for building knowledge and networks. The project will take place with the support of the Melbourne Biodiversity Institute under the supervision of Professor Brendan Wintle, with co-supervision from leading researchers in the Faculty of Business and Economics.

The successful candidate will be supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship through the Melbourne Biodiversity Institute at The University of Melbourne.

Closing date

When the position is filled (please apply as soon as possible).

Eligibility criteria

1. The successful candidate must be eligible as a domestic student (Australian citizen or permanent resident).
2. Must be able to commence study before 31 July 2024.
3. Must meet minimum entry standards for admission into the University of Melbourne PhD program in the Faculty of Science.
4. Must have experience in at least one of the following: biodiversity, ecology, finance, economics, business strategy and supply chains, sustainability accounting, ESG or related disciplines.
5. Must be able to demonstrate strong organisational skills, time management, and ability to work independently and collaboratively as part of a team.

Please send an expression of interest letter addressing the above criteria and a CV (including an academic result summary) to biodiversity-info@unimelb.edu.au.

Image credit: City of Tampere.