The group’s central idea is to contribute to sustainable development while maintaining a strong focus on a sustainable circular economy, international transport and global value chains. Particular attention is paid to the role of transport in sustainable development, but also other aspects of sustainable business are of interest.
All research aim to take an interdisciplinary approach; we believe that law needs to be designed in interaction with the market players which again is dependent on the legal preconditions for their activities.
Currently the research group is working on a project plan with focus on Normative Tools for Freight Transport Sustainability (NormTooTrans). The aim is to study how normative tools of different kinds can be used as drivers for a behavioural change in the global transport industry. We take a holistic perspective and study the transport industry as part of global value chains. In relation to sustainable carriage key elements are emission reduction and emission reporting. The research builds on the theory of nudging and one perspective of the research is how transport emissions could be mitigated by a behavioural change in the transport industry e.g. by more efficient use of emission information. Hence we are particularly interested in the effect of self-regulative tools such as standards and triple bottom line reporting.
Ellen J. Eftestøl and Anu Bask established the INTERTRAN research group in 2010 as an interdisciplinary research group in transport law & logistics. The two lead the group together with Suvi Sankari, who takes a particular interest in research methods and legal theory. Today the group takes a broad perspective on sustainable business and law and include researchers from several fields of science, including philosophy, economy and social science. Our research network consists of a number of national and international collaborators. We also keep close contact with the Finnish business sector, which are represented in the advisory board.
We invite interested researchers to join our network.
The INTERTRAN research group is a member of Helsinki Sustainability Centre (HELSUS) and the Nordic research hub; Reimaging Norden in an Evolving World (ReNEW).