André Martinuzzi
is head of the Institute for Managing Sustainability and associate professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (www.wu.ac.at/sustainability). He has a doctoral degree in general management and a postdoctoral lecture qualification (venia docendi) in Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Policy. His main areas of research are corporate social responsiblity, sustainable development policies, evaluation research, and systems thinking. During the last years, he has co-ordinated projects funded by the EU Framework Programmes, has conducted tendered research projects on behalf of six different EU Directorates General, Eurostat, UNDP and for several national ministries. He designed and implemented an internet-based monitoring system for the 7th EU Framework Programme (www.FP7-4-SD.eu), developed knowledge brokerage tools for sustainable consumption (www.SCP-KNOWLEDGE.eu and www.SCP-RESPONDER.eu) and led a major work package in a project (www.CSR-IMPACT.eu) dealing with impact measurement of Corporate Social Responsibility as well as in another project on Awareness Building, Learning and Knowledge Transfer on Sustainable Use of Raw Materials (http://www.cobalt-fp7.eu).
In a brand new EU funded project (http://www.global-value.eu) he coordinates the development of a toolbox for assessing multinational corporations’ impacts on developing countries.
What fascinates you about your field of research?
Sustainable Development is an interdisciplinary field of research and systems thinking provides an approach how to deal with it. We are coordinating several EU projects which gives us the chance to exchange our ideas in Europe-wide networks and collaborate with leading researchers. Managing sustainability is about the grand challenges of the world and our societies. Therefore our research hopefully will have an impact and will help making the world a better place.
Where do you see or would like to see the field heading?
I would like to see higher impacts of our research on decision making in policy and business on the one hand and a change of societal practices on the other.
Is there an author / thinker, whose work inspires you in your own work?
Nigel Roome, Peter Hardi, Jeremy Moon, Georg Müller-Christ
What fascinates you about “Sustainability and Development”? In your own words: Why should people go there?
The EMCSR will contribute to link back the discussion on sustainable development to a systems thinking approach, where the whole debate started in the mid 1980ies. This view got lost for nearly three decades and would deserve a relaunch, as it can explain why our best efforts to improve things still did not change the most pressing unsustainable trends.
