Addressing 21st-century environmental, ecological and extinction challenges arising from the climate crisis, global warming, ecological and ecosystem degradation, biodiversity collapse, mass species extinctions, and water scarcity.

About

The EEEAGER Group is an inclusive community which integrates environmental, ecological and extinction researchers from other business and governance-related disciplines including financial management, management, marketing, strategy, international business, logistics, human resource management, and operations, as well as from other academic disciplines. All our research activities contribute to Cardiff Business School’s Public Value strategy.

The EEEAGER Group acts as a forum for international and interdisciplinary researchers from academia and practice in the fields of accounting, governance and economics to meet, share ideas and work collaboratively to address the environmental and ecological challenges faced by organisations across all sectors and their stakeholders today.

Such collaborative research will lead to the development of theoretical and practical frameworks, tools, mechanisms and solutions that can be applied in practice to solve, or at least progress, towards solutions to these challenges.

The EEEAGER Group will contribute to the School’s objective of producing internationally excellent research by providing a forum for like-minded researchers from around the world to meet, exchange ideas, collaborate on research projects, write and publish papers and books together, apply for research funding and produce research outputs of the highest quality in world-leading international journals.

The EEEAGER Group’s work will also lead to substantial impacts on organisations, society and the environment.

The history of the group

The EEEAGER Group provides a physical home at Cardiff Business School for the existing online EAGR (Extinction Accounting and Governance Research) Network which was established in January 2021 during the pandemic as an online network of international and interdisciplinary researchers who run regular online seminars under the title ‘IFEAR4FUTURE’. We are continuing this online seminar series with regular seminars and discussants throughout the year.

Meet the team

Management team

Director and Founder

Co-directors

• Professor Warren Maroun
• Dr Longxiang Zhao
• Dr Mira Lieberman

Academic staff members

Postgraduate students

• Martina Macpherson

Events

First Call for Papers

EEEAGER 2nd International Conference and Doctoral Colloquium

17 and 18 June 2025

The Environmental, Ecological and Extinction Accounting, Governance and Economics Research Group

Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK
The Postgraduate Teaching Centre (PTC) Rooms 2.02/2.01

Interdisciplinary research into biodiversity protection, nature restoration, rewilding is growing exponentially given the global crisis we face due to biodiversity and ecosystem collapse and species extinctions. The EEEAGER group acts as a forum for researchers to meet and discuss their research into these areas with an international and interdisciplinary focus but grounded in the disciplines of accounting and finance, economics, governance and related business areas.

Global efforts are underway to address biodiversity and nature loss through rewilding programmes in line with COP29, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the EU Nature Restoration Law, and other international initiatives. New accounting frameworks such as the TNFD, Biological Diversity (BD) Protocol, the latest Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) provide guidance and to some extent regulation on corporate/organisational reporting in these areas.

Similarly, there are extensive developments in the financial markets to enable substantial funding to be channelled into nature restoration and rewilding projects, such as the emergence of biodiversity and nature credits. The economic benefits of healthy ecosystems are increasingly acknowledged by businesses, governments and societies around the world as are the links between the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. The need to address species loss urgently is also recognised globally and efforts to conserve endangered species of flora and fauna as well as to develop de-extinction programmes abound.

Our second EEEAGER Doctoral Colloquium and Conference invites scholars from around the world to submit abstracts for consideration in the following areas, but also on any related interdisciplinary research topics:

• Carbon accounting and governance
• Environmental accounting and assurance
• Accounting, accountability and assurance for nature restoration and biodiversity
• Financing for nature restoration, rewilding and de-extinction
• Research into the introduction of the TNFD, the Biological Diversity (BD) Protocol and other nature-related accounting and reporting frameworks
• International illustrations of nature-related and biodiversity accounting and finance
• The role of, and evolution of, ecological and extinction governance frameworks
• Accounting for species protection and extinction accounting
• philosophical and ethical debates around biodiversity protection, nature restoration, rewilding and de-extinction and how these relate to accounting, accountability, finance and assurance.

We also welcome research applying a wide range of methodological approaches, including qualitative, quantitative, interpretive, and theoretical. The submission deadline for this second conference is 31 May 2025. Early submission is however recommended as places are limited.

Please submit your abstracts to Jill Atkins (atkinsj10@cardiff.ac.uk), and Hui Situ (situH1@cardiff.ac.uk). We look forward to welcoming you to Cardiff Business School in June.

Conference Fees

• Academics and Practitioners - Full Conference and Gala Dinner - £250
• Students - Full Conference and Gala Dinner - £150
• Students - Colloquium and first day of Conference, no Gala Dinner - £100

Registration

Please register for this conference via Eventsforce.

Guest Speakers

Professor Federica Doni, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

Keynote: “Biodiversity: Practice and research in action”

Federica Doni is Associate Professor in Business Administration and Accounting. She currently works at the Department of Business and Law, University of Milano-Bicocca. Federica researches Financial Reporting and Accounting, Intangibles and Intellectual Capital, Integrated reporting, ESG and sustainability, corporate governance.

One of her current projects is 'Sustainability disclosure, ESG and SDGs reporting". She was the principal investigator of the Jean Monnet Module entitled "Sustainability Disclosure in Corporate Reporting. Improvement and harmonization of best practices in European Union" selected for EU support.

Professor Warren Maroun, University of the Witwatersrand & the University of Leeds

Keynote: “Informing the ISSB’s work on biodiversity accounting”

Warren Maroun is a Professor of Accounting and Auditing and a practising Chartered Accountant. He earned his Masters in Accountancy from the University of the Witwatersrand and a PhD from Kings' College London. He is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). Before joining academia, Warren served in different capacities at PricewaterhouseCoopers in South Africa (PwC).

He held a visiting role at the firm from 2010-2018 and currently serves as a non-executive director of the Professional Provident Society (PPS) in South Africa. Warren consults widely on a range of accounting-, assurance- and sustainability-related matters including the provision of expert services in arbitration proceedings.

He serves on different task forces, working groups and committees for the Integrated Reporting Committee of South Africa, the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors, and the Chartered Governance Institute of Southern Africa. Warren served on the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) from 2022 - 2024 having been nominated by the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Elena Vydrine, Senior Investment Specialist – Public Markets, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, IIGCC

Practitioner Keynote: “Index Investing for the Net Zero Transition”

Elena leads the development and application of the Net Zero & Climate Resilience Investment Frameworks and other thought leadership on emerging thematics, providing deep investment expertise, and addressing technical issues to advance guidance on specific topics relevant to implementation efforts of members’ net zero commitments.

Portfolio management and responsible investment professional with over 15 years of industry experience in managing passive and systematic index strategies, ETFs and sustainable finance at Blackrock, HSBC Global Asset Management and MSCI.

Elena holds MSc in Investment Management from Bayes Business School and an MSc in Sustainability Leadership from Cambridge University.

The Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies

The Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies is pleased to serve as a supporting journal for EEEAGER's 2nd International Conference and Doctoral Colloquium. Presenters are welcome to submit their papers to the special issue on "Navigating the Intersection of Digital Innovation and ESG: Pathways to Sustainable Development".

Past events