Greener Goals, Smarter Strategies: UNSW Researchers Transforming Sustainability
Published on the 28 July 2025 by UNSW Business School EDI Team
Each year, UNSW Business School proudly awards five Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Research Grants, empowering our HDR candidates to tackle pressing global challenges.
These grants support innovative research that drives progress toward the UN SDGs (2030 – 2050) through transformative industry or government interventions at local, national, or international levels.
Three of the grants are funded by the UNSW Business School’s SDG Committee, while the remaining two are generously supported by the UNSW Global Water Institute.
The funding is dedicated to advancing research projects that inspire real-world impact and sustainable solutions. For the 2024-2025 cycle, a panel of expert judges selected five exceptional recipients: Caitlin Brines, Sharunya Gnanasubramaniam, Ka Wing Chan, Dwiardi Vergiawan, Gayani Thalagoda.
Their visionary research proposals and compelling presentations distinguished themselves through their rigor, relevance, and transformative potential. Each project exemplifies a commitment to driving meaningful change across industries and communities.
Congratulations to this year’s awardees — bold innovators charting the course toward a more sustainable and equitable future!
To learn more about these expectational research projects, UNSW Business School spoke to each awardee about their research and how this will enable positive Societal impact.
Name: Ka Wing Chan
School affiliation: School of Marketing
Thesis title: EV Charging Availability and Grocery Store Performance
What is your thesis about (elevator pitch)?
As the shift to electric vehicles accelerates, a major obstacle remains: the lack of charging infrastructure. Grocery retailers, highlighted as key stakeholders due to their widespread parking lots, are in a unique position to help solve this problem. Yet many remain hesitant to support EV infrastructure, partly due to uncertainty about the business case.
The first study in my thesis addresses this gap by analysing data from over 300 grocery stores in Germany using a staggered Difference-in-Differences design. We find that EV charging availability increases store sales by around 2%. Beyond that, we unpack why and when the effect occurs, offering valuable insights for retailers, policy makers, and EV charging network providers alike.
Why is this relevant today?
My thesis addresses the urgent need to accelerate the deployment of EV charging infrastructure, a critical enabler of the global transition to sustainable transport. It focuses on a key but underexplored stakeholder group: grocery retailers.
This is highly relevant given the growing policy momentum around climate action and transport electrification. Governments are investing heavily in EV infrastructure, but private-sector participation is essential to meet demand. Grocery retailers can play a pivotal role in closing infrastructure gaps, especially in suburban and regional areas.
However, without clear evidence of commercial return, their engagement remains limited. By quantifying the sales impact of EV charging, our study supports more informed, data-driven decisions that align business incentives with environmental goals, directly contributing to SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).
What has been the significance of receiving the UNSW BUS SDG Grant on your research?
The UNSW SDG Grant has been instrumental in advancing my research by enabling me to attend and present at an international academic conference. This experience allowed me to share my findings with leading scholars in the field, receive valuable feedback, and engage in discussions that helped sharpen the theoretical and practical contributions of my work. The funding also enhanced the visibility of the project and helped position it within a global conversation on sustainable infrastructure and business strategy.
Name: Caitlin Brines
School affiliation: School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation
Thesis title: Managers use of ESG Information
What is your thesis about (elevator pitch)?
Organisations operate in an environment where shareholders actively encourage both financial and sustainability outcomes, however this becomes difficult to achieve in times of limited resources.
My thesis examines managerial decisions that incorporate sustainability information and aims to enhance the positive social impact these decisions have, leading to heightened social and environmental outcomes.
I use experimental methodologies to understand how different factors, such as strategic performance management tools, can help managers make decisions which yield both positive financial and sustainability outcomes.
What contemporary issue does your thesis address?
My thesis addresses managers’ resource allocation towards sustainability programs and specifically investigates the tensions between financial and sustainability value creation.
As organizations increase their participation in a range of sustainability programs, managers must make decisions as to how to allocate limited organizations resources between these programs and other initiatives. I use an experiment to examine how the strategy map, a common strategic performance management tool, can be adapted to improve resource allocation towards sustainability programs in both investment and cost-reduction scenarios.
Given recent economic conditions, organisations have considered reducing their sustainability efforts as an attempt to remain financially viable. My research addresses this key issue by first understanding how resource allocation decisions differ between sustainability and non-sustainability programs in both investment and cost-reduction scenarios; specifically in cost-reductions scenarios where there are increased tensions between financial survival and sustainability investment.
What has been the significance of receiving the UNSW BUS SDG Grant on your research?
This grant helped me to travel to the United States to attend the American Accounting Association’s Current Issues in Sustainability conference. In attending this conference, I heard from and engage with individuals from both academia and the industry sector.
This conference enabled me to network with peers and clarify my ideas for this study, specifically hearing about how a range of sustainability matters are handled in practice, which encouraged me to ensure my research remains practical, relevant and can provide positive sustainability impacts in real world contexts.