Browsing by study line "Skoglig bioekonomi, affärsverksamhet och politik"

Forests are highly valued for the wide range of ecosystem services they provide and are increasingly expected to play a role in providing solutions to both rural development and global challenges. In countries where forest ownership structure is characterized by a high share of private ownership, non-industrial, private forest owners eventually determine the type and extent of management of a large part of national forest resources. In Italy, where this is the case, the potential of forests remains largely unexploited, and the alleged lack of active management even threatens to increase forest vulnerability. In this context, the new Italian Forest Strategy aims to untap the forests’ potential and enhance the delivery of their services by promoting an active, sustainable management, but is faced with the challenge of reviving the interest of private owners in managing their land. Despite being implicitly entrusted with the responsibility of stewardship of forest resources, the Italian forest owner is still a mysterious figure, due to data scarcity, and is mostly absent from the political and economic scene. Characterizing forest owners, understanding their values, objectives, and other factors affecting their behavior is crucial to develop appropriate and effective policy instruments that will sensitize and incentivize them to “own” their land in the way that society would expect of them. This work contributes to filling the data gap on Italian forest owners by presenting a case study from a region of the western Alps, the Autonomous Region of Aosta Valley. By the way of a structured questionnaire and in-depth semi-structured interviews, we investigated how forest owners perceived forest management and the role they played, could play, or would be willing to play in forest stewardship. The results show that forest owners unanimously believe that forests need to be managed, a term which they mostly associate to maintenance, intended as taking care of the forests in order to keep it healthy and prosperous. However, they still hold a rather traditional view of forest uses, in which social and societal functions of forests are rarely addressed or related to owner’s responsibility. Also, they do not perceive the forest as economically valuable, and the current lack of economic sustainability of forest operations is driving forest abandonment, which indicates that economic factors are a driving force for stewardship decisions. Five stewardship types, ranging on a gradient of low to high stewardship behavior, characterize the Aosta Valley forest owners: the oblivious and self-willed stewards (types that emerged from participants’ narratives), and the wishful, dutiful, and committed steward types (types represented by the participants). The wishful and dutiful types offer two targets of interest for policy intervention: the first is longing for a greater role in forest stewardship but needs guidance to act, and the second, whose stewardship behavior is driven by their moral norms towards their heritage, could be motivated to extend their existing range of action or diversify the ecosystem services they foster. Overall, we found that forest owners displayed willingness to increase their stewardship behavior but lacked the capacity to take on this responsibility alone in the current context. Raising stewardship levels will require regional forest authorities to engage more deeply with private owners and their forests, as well as strong supporting policies that should not neglect financial incentives in the difficult context of mountain forestry but should also aim to revalorize the forests and forest sectors, including the non-wood sector, which can help tackling the challenge of ensuring the societal outcomes of forest stewardship.

Tämän yritysvastuullisuuden aihepiiriin sijoittuvan maisterintutkielman tavoitteena oli selvittää puupohjaisten biopolttoaineiden ja turpeen toimitusketjujen kasvihuonekaasupäästöt. Työ perustui tapaustutkimukseen suomalaisesta energiayhtiöstä. Työn tutkimuskysymyksinä olivat: 1) paljonko puupohjaisten biopolttoaineiden ja turpeen toimitusketjuissa aiheutuu kokonaispäästöjä, 2) missä puupohjaisissa toimitusketjuissa muodostuvat suurimmat päästöt, 3) voidaanko terminaalitoimitusketjua hyödyntämällä vähentää kasvihuonekaasupäästöjä verrattuna toimituksiin suoraan tienvarresta käyttöpaikalle, 4) kuinka suuren osuuden päästöistä polton sivutuotteiden kuljetus jatkokäyttöön tuottaa. Laskennassa sovellettiin Greenhouse Gas Protocolin standardia yritysten arvoketjujen epäsuorien kasvihuonekaasupäästöjen (scope 3) laskentaan. Työssä käytettiin Microsoft Excel -ohjelmistoa. Suurimmat vuosittaiset kokonaispäästöt syntyivät kokopuu-, metsätähde- ja rankahakkeen tienvarsitoimitusketjuista. Puupohjaisten biopolttoaineiden yksikköpäästöt olivat samaa suuruusluokkaa kuin kirjallisuudessa. Käyttöpaikalle saapuvan polttoaineen energiasisältöä kohden tarkasteltuna terminaalitoimitusketjujen päästöt olivat samaa tasoa tai hieman korkeammat kuin vastaavilla tienvarsitoimitusketjuilla. Lisäksi terminaalitoimitusketjuihin aiheutui vielä pieni lisäpäästö terminaalien konetöistä. Tulosten pohjalta terminaalitoimitusketjuista aiheutuu tienvarsitoimitusketjuja suuremmat yksikköpäästöt. Samanlainen havainto on tehtävissä myös kirjallisuuden pohjalta. Polton sivutuotteiden kuljetuksesta syntyvien päästöjen osuus oli vähäinen, vain noin prosentin toimitusketjujen kokonaispäästöistä. Työn merkittävimmät epävarmuudet liittyivät lähtötietojen kattavuuteen ja päästökertoimien valintaan. Tulosten pohjalta annettiin suosituksia toimitusketjujen päästöjen vähentämiseen. Jos terminaalitoimitusketjulla haluttaisiin saavuttaa päästövähennyksiä, tulisi tehdä merkittäviä energia- ja päästötehokkuutta parantavia investointeja. Lisäksi suositellaan muun muassa vähentämään kantojen energiakäyttöä korkeiden yksikköpäästöjen vuoksi.

Every company receives customer complaints and negative customer feedback. With functional customer complaint management and service recovery processes, it is possible to restore customers’ satisfaction and loyalty towards the company, enhance the self-efficacy of the staff and improve service processes of the company. Objective of this study was to find out, how recovery process is recognized, how it is utilized, and which are the main needs of development. In this study, current customer complaint process is examined through service recovery theory highlighting the role of process recovery and employee recovery. The effect of current customer complaint process on customer experience is also discussed. The research material of this study was collected in summer 2020 by questionnaire. Questionnaire was sent by e-mail to personnel who handle customer complaints in their tasks. The questionnaire was sent to 323 person and 85 approved responses were received. The response rate was 26 %. Research method in this thesis is quantitative analysis. Based on the results, the customer complaint process could be utilized further. Better distribution of responsibility, recognizing the importance of customer complaint and service blueprints will improve the quality of the customer complaint process. Furthermore, customer complaint process should be more straightforward and continuous training for personnel should be added. Employees have high motivation to restore customer satisfaction and secure good customer experience. Further study is needed to clarify the customers’ view of customer experience of customer complaint process.

Yritysten on kyettävä vastaamaan markkinoilla sekä vallitsevissa olosuhteissa tapahtuviin muutoksiin. Ilmastonmuutos, markkinahäiriöt, regulaatiot sekä sisäiset riskit ovat vain osa riskikenttää, joihin yritysten tulee puunhankintastrategioissaan varautua. Riskienhallinnan merkitys on paitsi toiminnan jatkuvuuden edellytys, niin myös vastuullisuuden osoitus sijoittajia kohtaan. Vaikka riskienhallinnan merkitys on puunhankinnan liiketoiminnan kannalta erittäin tärkeää, on puunhankinnan, riskienhallinnan ja strategian välistä tutkimustietoa tarjolla toistaiseksi vähän. Riskienhallintaa, puunhankintaa ja strategiaa koskevia erillisiä tutkimuksia sen sijaan on runsaasti. Tässä tutkielmassa pyrittiin selvittämään suomalaisten puunhankintaorganisaatioiden strategista kykyä hallita puunhankinnan liiketoimintaan liittyviä riskejä. Tutkimuksen ensisijainen tavoite oli tunnistaa puunhankinnan liiketoiminnan riskienhallinnan kattavuus, mahdolliset puutteet sekä ongelmat. Toissijaisena tavoitteena oli löytää jatkotutkimuksen aiheita, joilla havaittuja huomioita voitaisiin tarkastella erikseen ja mahdollisesti löytää sitä kautta uusia toimintatapoja. Tutkimuksen teoreettinen tausta muodostui puunhankinnan sekä riskienhallinnan välisestä yhteydestä strategiaprosessiin. Strategiaprosessi toimi tutkimuksen taustalla ja siihen yhdistettiin sekä puunhankintaa, että riskienhallintaa. Kyseessä on laadullinen tutkimus, jossa käytettiin kahta eri aineistoa sekä kahta erilaista laadullista menetelmää. Ensimmäisenä aineistona toimi Suomen isoimpien puunhankintaorganisaatioiden vuosiraporttien riskienhallintaosiot. Aineistoa analysoitiin teorialähtöisesti ja prosessoitiin ATLAS.ti-ohjelmiston avulla. Toisena aineistona toimi puunhankintaorganisaation ammattilaisille suunnattu strukturoitu, teemoiteltu kyselytutkimus, jota analysoitiin teoriaohjaavalla lähestymistavalla. Vuosiraporttien perusteella saadut tulokset osoittivat suomalaisen puunhankinnan liiketoimien riskienhallinnan olevan melko hyvällä tasolla. Merkittäviä puutteita ei ollut havaittavissa. Kyselytutkimuksen tuloksien osalta tutkimus osoitti, että kehitettäviä kohteita löytyy niin strategian kuin riskienhallinnan jalkautuksessa sekä riskienhallinnan tiedostamisessa. Tutkimuksen johtopäätöksinä voidaan pitää, että puunhankinnan liiketoiminnan, strategian sekä riskienhallinnan synteesi tarvitsee lisää jatkotutkimuksia. Tutkimuskenttää voisi kaventaa riskienhallinnan osalta yksittäisiin havaittuihin pääriskeihin, joita tarkasteltaisiin strategian ja puunhankinnan liiketoiminnan näkökulmasta. Lisäksi strategian ja strategiaan liittyvän riskienhallinnan jalkautuksen osalta esiin tulleisiin ongelmiin voisi kohdentaa tulevaisuudessa tutkimustöitä.

A company is considered to be responsible to the public, and it is thus expected to practise Corporate Responsibility. A company practises Corporate Responsibility when its operations are run in a beyond compliance manner regarding society, the environment, and the economy. These practices also benefit the company's image and finance in the long run. Corporate Environmental Policy (CEP) presents the company's practices or intentions considering beyond-compliance operations regarding the environment. There are no existing regulations, common guidelines, or third-party verification processes that would control what and how companies can or should include in their CEPs. There have been only a small number of studies focusing on CEPs, and none of them has addressed the accuracy of the statements. The current study investigates the accuracy levels of SaaS and Consulting companies' CEPs, whether the company discusses their already existing practices or goals, and how companies communicate their motives for having a CEP. An inductive content analysis was conducted on ten CEPs. The results show that CEPs include mostly inaccurate policy statements that inform about the company's plans and aims, and companies motivate their CEPs mainly by their perceived responsibility for their stakeholders. CEPs struggle with similar problems as any other form of Corporate Responsibility communications: vagueness, lack of concrete examples, and large amounts of irrelevant verbiage. This study calls for more research on CEPs and regulations to minimize greenwashing happening in the field.

The environmental detriments caused by textiles are multitude and large in scale. Substantial energy use and greenhouse gas emissions occur in the use phase of the garment. Using the lens of Consumption Work, this thesis maps the circular practices of active citizens related to textiles, i.e. clothes and home textiles, as well as the skills and other resources needed for the execution of the practices. The role of these practices in Circular Economy is considered through the 3R framework. Based on semi-structured interviews with 23 active citizens in Finland, a total of 29 circular practices related to clothes and home textiles were detected. The three most common practices among the interviewees were buying second-hand, repairing, and donating. In addition, this thesis contributes to identifying the invisible practices of planning/keeping books of purchases, recognizing materials, and others that are rarely mentioned in connection with Circular Economy. Textile-related circular practices were found to require different skills, such as sewing, and information searching, and other resources including time, knowledge, and equipment. For being able to have and use textiles, people are required to perform Consumption Work consisting of these textile-related practices of which some are mandatory, and some (more) voluntary. Citizens are increasingly expected to do Consumption Work with economic value in the future. This could be enabled e.g. through appearance of versatile second-hand shops and online platforms, and inspirational actions of others. In addition, structural changes at the state, municipal, and textile industry levels but also at the individual and societal levels are required. Further research is needed e.g. on what motivates people to take part in Circular Economy by conducting circular practices on individual and household levels, and how Consumption Work is divided between family members and genders.

Eucalyptus growing by smallholders for financial income has rapidly expanded in the district of Mecha, Amhara region, Ethiopia. Nevertheless, a lack of market knowledge on final consumer markets is limiting the income that smallholders receive for their eucalyptus poles. This study aims to uncover the barriers to market knowledge transfer hindering smallholders from receiving higher incomes for their products by analyzing the vertical coordination of actors in the value chain. The qualitative study was based on the Global Value Chain framework, which uses the theory of chain governance to explain the vertical coordination amongst actors. For the study, 18 semi-structured interviews (5 smallholders, 6 traders, 3 service providers, 2 experts, 2 regulators) were conducted with individuals and groups representing a total of 21 individuals. The interviews were transcribed and edited for theory-driven thematic analysis. The coordination between smallholders and traders falls closest to the market governance type meaning that transactions are based on price and product specification. The increased demand for high-quality eucalyptus poles in Bahir Dar reflected by high prices is not communicated through the chain to the producers. This lack of knowledge on the price variation for different pole qualities, together with unclear local pole classification system, leads to the possibility for traders to exploit smallholder tree growers to gain higher rent. Linking woodlot valuation to the market demand in Bahir Dar, increasing smallholders’ knowledge on the price variation for different qualities of poles, and improving the local pole classification system to include pole quality could enable tree growers in Mecha district to achieve higher financial benefits from their participation in the eucalyptus pole value chain.

Corporate responsibility has become an increasingly important objective, and its role as a part of company’s strategy has enhanced. The discussions around the topic have heated and failure to take responsibility into account can be very detrimental to the company’s reputation. Company’s accountability has been guided by regulatory means. There have been regulations in place for a longer period both in Europe and the United States, but in the emerging markets the interest around the topic is also constantly growing. The aim of the thesis was to investigate how companies’ stock prices react when they are either added to or removed from the responsibility index in the emerging markets in 2013-2020. The index under study was the Dow Jones Sustainability Emerging Markets Index (DJSI Emerging Markets), which selects annually approximately 80 best companies from the emerging markets according to RobecoSAM’s ESG criteria. In addition, the study examined whether the reactions had changed in the subsequent period 2016–2020 compared to the previous period 2013–2015. The research material was collected from the S&P Global website and, in terms of share prices, from the Orbis and Yahoo Finance databases. Data analysis was performed with R and Microsoft Excel software. Quantitative event study was used as a research method, and the data was examined by using the daily stock prices in the 21-day [-10, +10] event window. The study examined the reaction both at the time of publication of the index (publication date, when the annual content of the index is published) and at the actual time of change (date of change, when the changes in the index take effect). Based on the results, the addition to the studied index caused abnormal returns around the date of change on the two-day window [0, +1]. The observed average cumulative abnormal return (CAAR) in the event window was +0.46%. Annualized, the abnormal return would thus be approximately 57,5%. However, based on the results, abnormal returns weakened later after the event. Additionally, for the removed stocks, a negative return reaction was observed in the date of change event window [0, +1], where the CAAR was -0.37%. No statistically significant results were observed in later time windows – suggesting the presence of semi-strong market efficiency. On the publication date of the index, no statistically significant results were observed. Reactions only on the change date suggest that the addition (deletion) to the index itself does not provide the investors with new information about the stocks added (removed). Instead, the results provide evidence that the abnormal return arises from the increased trading activity of the stock.

The amount of wooden multi-storey buildings has increased in Finland during the past years, but the volume remains low. The use of wood in the large building types has increased, because of ecological, environmental, architectural and pleasantness factors. Wood element production enables larger spans when building with wood. Because of the climate change, decreasing the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is important. Wood is a sustainable material due to its carbon storage capability and low-carbon emissions from the production. The aim of this research is to explore the criteria that impact financing decisions in multi-storey residential buildings. The research examines what the criteria for financing wooden multi-storey residential buildings are, how financiers assess risks and opportunities in wooden multi-storey constructions (WMC) and what is the role of the sustainability in WMC. The research was conducted by interviewing people in the field of financing and real estate investing. Interviews were held during autumn 2022 as online meetings. The interview results show that financiers especially focus on the financial criteria. This included profitability of the financing, ability of the construction company and risk analysis. Other criteria mentioned were location, sustainability factors, apartment pre-marketing and maintenance costs. Building material was not seen as a significant factor as it is decided by the construction company, and it is part of the risk analysis. According to the results, the building time is the riskiest time for the financier because of the low value of unfinished buildings. As risks, respondents find the construction company’s capability for the project and the lack of references, but also their realized lifecycle costs compared to concrete buildings. As opportunities good availability of material in Finland, development of the element building to lower the prices, ecological material, and carbon binding qualities were mentioned. Sustainability was seen as an important part of the financing decision; however, all respondents did not have it as a part of the current financial criteria. In addition to organization’s own sustainability goals, sustainability is guided from the outside as regulations. As an example, the EU taxonomy is already in use and is being implemented in the financing and building industry. Green financing was identified as one of the tools that guide sustainability and by adapting its criteria, construction companies may receive better loan conditions. As a conclusion, financiers are interested to finance wooden multi-storey buildings, but they require more long-term usage and cost experiences. As future research topics the thoughts and opinions of construction companies regarding the financing are suggested. In addition, what are the impacts of embedding the EU taxonomy into financiers’ and their customers’ actions.

The aim of the study was to identify drivers which affect the tendency to conduct timber trade online among private forest owners in greater Helsinki metropolitan area. Drivers were measured using a survey form. The survey form was constructed using an applied Technology Acceptance Model. Mail addresses for the survey were collected from a Finnish forest products company’s customer database. The survey data was gathered using a survey form which was delivered by mail. The form could also be filled online The reference population consisted of 6059 private forest owners from which a sample of 865 private forest owners was taken. The forest owners included in the sample were sent the survey form of which 88 were returned filled. This yields an answer percentage of 10 %. The answers were analyzed using linear regression models. From the individual models a composite model was constructed which was used to explain what the drivers behind private forest owners’ decision to do online timber trade were and how big the effects of a driver were. The biggest drivers according to the data were perceived usefulness, result demonstrability and relevance. Also output quality, perceived ease of use and subjective norm had a positive effect on the tendency to do online timber trade. According to the data it is impossible to say whether voluntariness of use has an effect on the private forest owners’ decision to do online timber trade. The results were mainly in line with previous Technology Acceptance Model based research. The effects of subjective norm and output quality were slightly lower than previous Technology Acceptance Model related studies. There has not yet been any previous research into the tendency to conduct online timber trade in Finland to which the results could be directly compared to.