BIOPATH profile portraits: Kristina Jonäll

Meet Kristina Jonäll, Senior lecturer, Department of Business Administration, University of Gothenburg and researcher in Mistra BIOPATH WP2 with a focus on understanding how biodiversity considerations can be taken into account in organisational and financial decision-making.

Kristina Jonäll, University of Gothenburg, Mistra BIOPATH WP2

What topics are most interesting in your research field at the moment?

My research currently centres on how organisations understand, act on and report their biodiversity impacts. I am especially interested in the credibility of corporate biodiversity actions, the interaction between climate and biodiversity strategies, and how new analytical tools, including large language models, can reveal patterns in reporting at scale. A further strand of my work explores how companies navigate emerging expectations to demonstrate responsibility.

How does your research align with the impact pathways in Mistra BIOPATH?

My research contributes to BIOPATH’s ambition to better understand how biodiversity considerations can be taken into account in organisational and financial decision-making. By examining how biodiversity is described, quantified and communicated in corporate reporting, I aim to clarify what information is actually available to investors, companies and regulators. This includes identifying areas where disclosures capture relevant aspects of biodiversity impacts, as well as where the reporting is limited, inconsistent or potentially misleading. The results can provide a basis for reflecting on how assessment tools, governance practices and organisational routines might be improved to support more informed decisions.

Tell us something about your research journey

I entered sustainability accounting with an interest in how organisations justify their environmental performance. Over time, biodiversity became an increasingly central part of this work, driven both by global policy developments and by the clear need for better accountability mechanisms. My research now combines accounting with ecology-informed reasoning and AI-supported analysis, allowing me to explore how biodiversity is made visible, or remains hidden, in organisational practice and reporting.

What are the additional values of working in an interdisciplinary research programme?

Interdisciplinary collaboration is essential for understanding biodiversity challenges. Working alongside ecologists, policy scholars and researchers, enables a richer interpretation of organisational data and strengthens the relevance of the findings for practitioners. It also helps bridge gaps between scientific evidence and corporate or financial decision-making, creating a shared understanding that would be difficult to achieve within a single discipline.

In what ways do you interact with or collaborate with external stakeholders in your research?

In my research, my interaction with external stakeholders mostly takes place through conversations in professional settings such as conferences, workshops and academic–practitioner events. These discussions provide valuable insight into how companies and public organisations interpret biodiversity issues and how they navigate reporting requirements in practice. Although my empirical work is largely based on publicly available corporate reports, these conversations help me understand the context behind such disclosures and the practical constraints organisations face.

Download the recent publication by Kristina Jonäll, Ylva Baekström and Susanne Arvidsson:

Jonäll, K., Baeckström, Y., Elliot, V., Arvidsson, S. (2025). The biodiversity–finance nexus: a future research agenda. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 72, 101504. ISSN 1877-3435. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2024.101504