Emmy

Wassénius

PhD

Postdoctoral researcher

emmy.wassenius@su.se

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Profile summary

  • Sustainability risk
  • Systemic risk
  • Nature-related financial risk
  • Corporate sustainability disclosure
  • Investor guidance
  • Natural resource production systems
  • Social-ecological systems

Emmy Wassénius researches how risks are created and excacerbated by unsustainable practices and complex social-ecological interactions

Wassénius unpacks today’s risk landscape with systemic and compounding risks by investigating the mechanisms through which risks are created or exacerbated. Part of this work is to further research on how shocks and compound risks are shaped by the interaction between human practices and the environment.

Wassénius specifically works with understanding how compound risks are created by and manifest in corporations and understanding the leverage points that investors can have in reducing these risks. This work therefore also entails furthering research on corporate sustainability disclosure and nature-related financial risk and developing non-academic materials to guide companies and investors to reduce unsustainable practices and mitigate compound risks. Wassénius works towards all sectors, but with particular focus on the primary sector and natural resource production systems.

Wassénius is part of the Finance to Revive Biodiversity (FinBio) programme, funded by Mistra.

Wassénius holds a PhD in Sustainability Science from Stockholm University. Her thesis is titled: “Sustainability Risk: A social-ecological systems perspective” and explores what risk means in Sustainability Science. She also holds a MSc degree in Social-Ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development from Stockholm University and a BSc (Hons) in Marine Biology from the University of St Andrews (UK).

Key publications

Wassénius, E., Crona, B., Quahe, S., 2024. Essential environmental impact variables: A means for transparent corporate sustainability reporting aligned with planetary boundaries. One Earth 7, 211–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2024.01.014

Wassénius, E., Crona, B.I., 2022. Adapting risk assessments for a complex future. One Earth 5, 35–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.12.004

Publications by Wassénius, Emmy

Reframing the local-global food systems debate through a resilience lens

Journal / article | 2023

Wood, Amanda, Queiroz, Cibele, Deutsch, Lisa, Gonzalez-Mon, Blanca, Jonell, Malin, Pereira, Laura, Sinare, Hanna, Svedin, Uno, Wassenius, Emmy. 2023. Reframing the local-global food systems debate through a resilience lens. Nature Food. https://doi.org/10.1038/S43016-022-00662-0

Despite the growing knowledge that food system solutions should account for interactions and drivers across scales, broader societal debate on how to solve food system challenges is often focused on two dichotomous perspectives and associated solutions: either more localized food systems or greater global coordination of food systems. The debate has found problematic expressions in contemporary challenges, prompting us to revi...

Adapting risk assessments for a complex future

Journal / article | 2022

Wassénius, E., Crona, B. 2022. Adapting risk assessments for a complex future. One Earth. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.12.004

Human activities have progressively eroded the biosphere basis for our societies and introduced various risks. To navigate these risks, or potential undesirable outcomes of the future, we need tools and an understanding of how to assess risk in a complex world. Risk assessments are a powerful tool to address sustainability challenges. However, two issues currently hamper their ability to deal with sustainability risks: the lim...

Species differences drive spatial scaling of foraging patterns in herbivorous reef fishes

Journal / article | 2021

Chow, C., Wassénius, E., Dornelas, M., Hoey, A.. 2021. Species differences drive spatial scaling of foraging patterns in herbivorous reef fishes. Oikos. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/oik.08713

Herbivory is a core ecosystem function that is delivered heterogeneously across space. Disentangling the drivers of foraging patterns is key to understanding the functional impact of herbivores. Because intrinsic drivers of foraging like metabolism, nutritional requirements and movement costs scale allometrically, foraging movement patterns in terrestrial herbivores have been shown to also scale positively with body size. Howe...

Sharing the seas: a review and analysis of ocean sector interactions

Journal / article | 2021

Crona, B., Wassénius, E., Lillepold, K., Watson, R., Selig, E., Hicks, C., Österblom, H., Folke, C., Jouffray, J., Blasiak, R.. 2021. Sharing the seas: a review and analysis of ocean sector interactions. Environmental Research Letters. http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac02ed

Ocean activities are rapidly expanding as Blue Economy discussions gain traction, creating new potential synergies and conflicts between sectors. To better manage ocean sectors and their development, we need to understand how they interact and the respective outcomes of these interactions. To provide a first comprehensive picture of the situation, we review 3187 articles to map and analyze interactions between economically im...