Join us for the annual BIODIFUL Leadership Forum at Logomo in Turku on May 22, 2025, from 12:00 to 16:00. This year’s forum will explore the connection between leadership and biodiversity, providing opportunities to network and reflect on our collective impact.
Registration is open until 12 May. Coffee will be served at the event. The event is held in English.
Program
12.00 Opening words
Please Regulate Us – Senior Research Fellow Sanna Ahvenharju
Biodiversity measurements in support of biodiversity-respectful leadership – Associate Professor Ville Uusitalo and Postdoctoral Researcher Natasha Järviö
KEYNOTE 1: Sustainability at the interface of business and policy – Member of Parliament and author Pauli Aalto-Setälä
13.00 Coffee // Break
Nature Time Machine 5D: Step into the 5D Nature Time Machine and immerse yourself in the enchanting forests of Finland. This 360° video and sound experience shows different future variations, where biodiversity is either being degraded or protected. Witness the beauty and fragility of Finnish nature like never before.
14.00 Program continues
KEYNOTE 2: Responsible, sustainable or regenerative strategies? – Professor Oana Branzei
Urgent Business Acts for Biodiversity – Associate Professor Tiina Onkila and Assistant Professor Anne Quarshie
Food System of the Future – Postdoctoral Researcher Irene Kuhmonen and Senior Researcher Saska Tuomasjukka
Collaborative Round Table with audience – Senior Researcher Milla Unkila
Closing Remarks – Professor Ilari Sääksjärvi and Professor Satu Teerikangas
Venue
The event will take place at Logomo, LOGI hall. Follow the signage from the train station or parking lot when you arrive.
Event photography and recording
The event will be photographed and the presentations will be streamed and recorded. By attending the event, you give permission for the images to be used in event news and BIODIFUL’s event marketing. Please inform the photographer if you do not wish to be featured in the images.
Event live-stream
You can also stream the presentations online. However, we recommend that you come to the venue to discuss, meet our researchers and network. You will also have the possibility to see the BIODIFUL Nature Time Machine, as it is displayed to the visitors in the new 5D hall of the Logomo.
You will receive a link to the live-stream via email before the event. Please note that this is not a hybrid event, meaning remote participants will not be able to join the discussions.
Speakers
Member of the parliament Pauli Aalto-Setälä
Pauli Aalto-Setälä is a member of parliament and the protector of the archipelago 2025. He is a journalist and an experienced leader with a career spanning over 30 years in the leadership of domestic and international companies. The preservation of the Archipelago and the Baltic Sea region are especially close to Pauli’s heart and an important part of his work as an MP.
Professor Oana Branzei
Oana Branzei is a professor at Ivey Business School, Western University, specializing in strategy and sustainability. She has founded programs like the HBA Sustainability Certificate and PhD Sustainability Academy. Her research interests include regenerative economies, grand challenge innovation, and inclusive organizing. Branzei has published extensively in leading journals and serves as a field editor for several academic publications.
Senior Researcher Milla Unkila
Milla Unkila (D.Sc.) explores the relationship between business and nature. In her role as a senior researcher in the Turku School of Economics, she enjoys shaping a new and ethically more sensible generation of future business leaders. As the head of communications of multidisciplinary research project BIODIFUL she attempts to inspire the current leaders to take such actions now that would ensure a future for the future generations to flourish in.
Senior Research Fellow Sanna Ahvenharju
Sanna Ahvenharju, PhD, is a futures researcher specializing in the psychology of futures thinking and future images related to over-consumption, biodiversity and sustainability. Sanna enjoys looking for thought-provoking alternatives that could help us push for radical disruption towards better futures.
Professor Ville Uusitalo
Ville Uusitalo is a professor in the Sustainability Science unit of the LUT university. His work focuses on quantifying environmental impacts from life cycle perspective. His team is currently working on quantifying impacts on biodiversity using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies.
Postdoctoral Researcher Natasha Järviö
Natasha Järviö is a postdoctoral researcher at LUT university, specialized in the biodiversity impact assessment of food products using life cycle assessment and environmentally extended input output assessment. She has a special interest in regenerative farming and aims to improve biodiversity assessments of regenerative and other agroecological management practices through impact method development.
Associate Professor Tiina Onkila
Tiina Onkila works as an associate professor of Corporate Environmental management in Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics. Her research interests include sustainable business, circular economy, microlevel CSR, stakeholder approaches and sustainability reporting. She leads a workpackage on biodiversity respectful business in the BIODIDUL-project and is a member of Nature Panel Finland.
Assistant Professor Anne Quarshie
Anne Quarshie is an Assistant Professor of Biodiversity and Business at Turku School of Economics. Her main expertise areas include biodiversity-respectful and regenerative business and supply chain management, as well as humanitarian disaster response. Her research has earned awards like the IPSERA Best Doctoral Dissertation in Purchasing Award (2017) and has been published in leading journals.
Postdoctoral Researcher Irene Kuhmonen
Irene Kuhmonen is a postdoctoral researcher from Jyväskylä School of Business and Economics, University of Jyväskylä. Her research focuses on agrifood transformations: how food systems change and how their development can be steered towards a more sustainable direction. In the Biodiful project, she has been working with future visions of a biodiversity-respectful food system as well as the agency of farmers and other food system actors in driving transformations.
Senior Researcher Saska Tuomasjukka
Saska Tuomasjukka is a food entrepreneur and a Senior researcher at the Nutrition and Food Research Center of the University of Turku. He originally fell in love with the chemistry of food and the beauty of aroma molecules but later found himself studying nutrition and sustainability. His research focuses on systemic and individual enablers of value-neutral dietary changes between foods with same hedonistic appeal but differing ecological footprints.
Professor Ilari E. Sääksjärvi
Ilari E. Sääksjärvi, PhD, is Director of the Biodiversity Unit and the BIODIFUL project at the University of Turku. He has conducted research on biodiversity, particularly in the Amazon, and has developed interdisciplinary biodiversity research. Ilari’s passion is science communication. Every year he visits kindergartens, schools and high schools to talk about nature, in the hope of creating hope for a good future.
Professor Satu Teerikangas
Satu Teerikangas, PhD, is Professor in Management at the Turku School of Economics. As the deputy director of the BIODIFUL project, she seeks an interdisciplinary understanding of leadership that respects biodiversity, with a particular focus on business. Her passion is inspiring everyone to be a change agent for a sustainable tomorrow.
Register for the BIODIFUL Leadership Forum
Registration is open until 12 May. If you can’t make it, please cancel your attendance so we can avoid food waste.
