The best theses were awarded in high-level competition

The Association for Environmental Management (YJY) has chosen two best theses in the biennial thesis award competition. The purpose of the competition is to give recognition for the best theses in the sustainability area and to encourage studying and development of environmental management. This year we received twenty theses by the deadline of the competition. The theses were of high-quality and the topics were very topical and versatile. The theses discussed corporate responsibility discourse, carbon footprint accounting, development of circular economy business models and urban public transport among other things. The number of theses registered for the competition has grown every year since the competition was organized for the first time in 2014.

The author of one of the best thesis is Kati Marttinen with her Multi-tier sustainable supply chain management: Extending sustainability practices to lower-tier suppliers thesis. The thesis of Ms. Marttinen was convincing because of the exceptionally large research material and due to the author’s ability to create new scientific knowledge. Ms. Marttinen has graduated as a MSc. in Economics and Business Administration from the LUT-university. ‘’The thesis was done with good quality and especially the empirical research was done effortfully. You can learn a lot about responsible multi-tier supply chains from the thesis’’, says Sonja Kuokkanen, member of the YJY board. 

The thesis of Jenni Kaipainen Strategic renewal process towards sustainability – An ecosystem approach Case Neste Oyj stood out from the other theses as the thesis was excellent in all evaluation criteria. Ms. Kaipainen did her master’s thesis in University of Tampere in the Industrial Engineering and Management major. ‘’It was a pleasure to read Jenni’s thesis, as it was excellent from the beginning to the end. It was absolutely a relevant and interesting topic.’’, tells Hilkka Korte, member of the YJY board.

YJY board thanks all the participants and congratulates the winners. We wish that we will receive high-level sustainability research in future as well!