About
The UTM Sustainability Research Fund was awarded to IMI in the 2024-2025 academic year to enhance collaboration of sustainability research at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus. The goals of this fund are to provide faculty grants to support research in sustainability, cross-disciplinary collaboration of sustainability-focused research at UTM, support of undergraduate and graduate research through prizes, and opportunities for researchers to gather and connect.
Faculty Grants
Congratulations to Professor Randy Besco and Professors Feng Chen, Michael Marin, and Yue Li on winning two $5,000 faculty grants from the UTM Sustainability Research Fund!
Prof. Randy Besco’s project examines how public opinion about sustainability issues can change the effects of sustainability policies. “High profile policies like carbon taxes are hotly debated and highly politicised and, consequently, ordinary people form strong opinions about them. At the same time, those policies are supposed to change the behavior of people: carbon taxes should result in reduced purchases of carbon- intensive products because the prices are higher. Yet, rather than a strictly rational cost/benefit response, policy effects may depend on the degree of politicization. Ironically, it seems that pro- environmental attitudes may reduce the effectiveness of carbon taxes, because those people are happy to pay the carbon tax (and vice versa). These results could have important implication for the design of public policy, such as consumer vs industrial policies, separate vs included fees, and estimates of effectiveness.”
The core research question is: do attitudes about sustainability policies change the behavioral response to those same policies?
Professors Feng Chen, Michael Marin, and Yue Li's project aims to investigate how multinational corporations (MNC) practice Indigenous engagement and recognize Indigenous rights within diverse multinational social and regulatory environments.
“In an era of increasing globalization, multinational corporations (MNCs) are expanding their operations into regions inhabited by Indigenous peoples, raising critical questions about their interactions with these communities.”
“The study is significant given the growing emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the need to uphold international standards, such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). By examining these practices, the research aims to address the challenges and opportunities that MNCs face in balancing their economic interests with their ethical obligations toward Indigenous communities.”