Aleksandra Kekkonen is an Associate Professor and head of Green, Circular Economy and Resources knowledge team at EBS. She’s a transdisciplinary researcher, trainer, and sustainability consultant. EBS Green Ambassador 2022. Her doctoral dissertation, “Regional Human Capital: Formation and Development in Contemporary Conditions,” focused on the dynamics and development patterns of human capital in a changing socio-economic environment.
She is an advocate of the circular economy and sustainable living, integrating a macroeconomic perspective with practical applicability in both her research and teaching. Her current areas of expertise include the circular and green economies and sustainable development at the macro and regional levels. Her ongoing research projects address circular bioeconomy in forestry and food systems, and the green and sustainable transition of the economy and society, based on the enhanced application of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics and the doughnut economics framework.
Related courses at EBS
Areas of Expertise
- Green economy and sustainable development
- Circular economy and company green transitions
- Sustainable business education and training
- Human capital development and macroeconomic innovation, regional development strategies
- Digital technologies in sustainability (e.g., digital collective intelligence)
Some Publications
- Kekkonen, A., Pesor, R., & Täks, M. (2023). Stepping towards the green transition: Challenges and opportunities of Estonian companies. Sustainability, 15(4172).
- Kekkonen, A., & Beliatskaya, I. (2023). Tackling the sustainability crisis through digital collective intelligence: The principles of doughnut economics in smart cities. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (DGO ’23) (pp. 261–269). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA.
- Kekkonen, A. (2024). Operationalizing Doughnut Economics for regional green transition: An integrated multi-level stakeholder engagement framework. In M. Kooskora & A. Kekkonen (Eds.), Performance challenges in organizational sustainability: Responsible leadership and sustainable management (pp. xx–xx). Springer, Singapore.
- Kooskora, M., & Kekkonen, A. (Eds.). (2024). Performance challenges in organizational sustainability: Practices from public and private sector. Springer, Singapore.
- Pesor, R., Täks, M., & Kekkonen, A. (2024). Factors shaping Estonian entrepreneurs’ green transition awareness. Business Strategy and the Environment, 1–20.
Ongoing Projects
- “A Nordic Baltic sustainable framework for sustainable food systems”, NKJ funded project (The role of Nordic research in transition to sustainable agro-marine food systems) by Nordic Council of Ministers, 2024-2026“L2BGreen - Learning to be Green: An AI-enhanced multilingual online course for developing a green entrepreneurial mindset” Erasmus+ project aims to leverage scalable, digital ways of learning as the means to equip people with skills and knowledge on green entrepreneurship, 2024-2027
- COST Action CA22156 - Transformations international Experience and Research network for Sustainable futures (TransformERS), 2023-2027
Awards and Honors
- EBS Green Ambassador 2022
Further Activity
- 2024, Mainstreaming the SDGs in business education: Strategy, implementation, practice by EFMD.
- 2024, Summer School on Biodiversity, by ABIS - The Academy of Business in Society and University of Turku
- 2023, Zero Waste Trainer from Zero Waste Estonia SA
- 2022-2023, The Baltic University Programme Teachers ́ Course, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education by Åbo Akademi University