Additional information:
My primary research interests center around the green economy and sustainable development, particularly focusing on green transitions for companies, community involvement, and enhancing sustainability awareness among various stakeholder groups.
I am passionate about exploring how businesses can adapt to sustainability challenges, leverage circular economy practices, and contribute to broader societal goals through innovative approaches and education. Additionally, I am interested in the intersection of digital technologies and sustainability, such as applying doughnut economics principles to smart cities.
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
Courses Currently Taught
BA:
- Sustainable Business Solutions (3 ECTS) and Circular Economy (3 ECTS); Sustainability Stream lead at Impactful Entrepreneurship bachelor program.
MA:
- Green economy (3 ECTS)
- The Rise of Machines (3 ECTS)
- Macro-systemic Enablers, and Barriers to Circular Business Transition (3 ECTS).
- Starting in 2022, I developed and curated the specialisation "Leveraging Green Economy Innovation" in the EBS master's program Business Innovation in the New Economy (MA) and the courses Business in Times of Sustainability Crisis (3 and 5 ECTS) and Why We Talk about CO2 (3 ECTS) under it.
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