Associate ProfessorMartijn Boersma

ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2024-2026

This project aims to generate awareness and knowledge about the modern slavery - climate change nexus. Businesses can be linked to modern slavery and climate change through their operations and supply chains, and play a major role in mitigating these critical issues. The project will: (1) reveal the extent to which businesses recognise and address modern slavery and climate change as related issues; (2) develop an evidence-base detailing what constitutes meaningful and holistic business approaches and disclosures; (3) assess how market-based mechanisms are used to incentivise action and hold businesses to account. The outcomes will advance business efforts and accountability in relation to these problems and benefit impacted communities.

ARC Discovery Project 2025-2027

Proxy advisors provide guidance to more than 90% of the market's large institutional investors, making them powerful allies or obstacles for activist campaigns for ethical investment. This project aims to reveal proxy advisors' role in spreading ethical investment norms, by analysing the power structures of the investment ecosystem through a world-first multi-country study of ethical investment campaigns on climate change, modern slavery, and First Nations' land rights. Expected outcomes include the development of a novel typology for understanding influence in the realm of investment politics, and an evidence-base to provide benefits of guiding regulatory action and enhancing efforts to leverage market mechanisms to combat global problems.