King's College London

The Centre for Sustainable Business (CSB) at King’s Business School is excited to announce the winners of its 2025 Seed Fund, continuing its mission to foster early-stage sustainability research.

Launched in February 2024, the fund offers small-scale grants to kickstart innovative research on pressing sustainability themes. Winners are chosen for novelty, rigor, interdisciplinarity, and tangible impact potential.

This year’s projects respond to some of society’s most pressing problems using contextual approaches, and reflect the Centre’s four strategic pillars: Sustainable Consumption, Business Systems, Sustainable Finance, and Leadership for Sustainability.

With grants ranging from £5,000 to £20,000, the projects will be funded for up to 12 months, with the aim of targeting real-world environmental and societal challenges.

By supporting this work in its formative stages, the Centre continues to build a pipeline of research that can shape sustainable practices across business, government, and society.

Meet the 2025 Seed Fund Winners:

Reframing the Looking Glass: Toward a More-Than-Human Approach to Responsible Consumption

This project investigates how virtual reality (VR) can facilitate shared immersive experiences of environmental crises and enhance collective awareness, empathy, and sustainable behaviour. Leveraging multi-user VR environments, participants will jointly explore realistic simulations of crises such as climate change, ocean degradation, and ecosystem loss, testing whether shared virtual exposure leads to stronger engagement and action.

With Professor Ko de Ruyter (Professor of Marketing, King’s Business School), Professor Debbie Keeling (University of Sussex), Associate Professor Mathew Chylinski (UNSW, Sydney), and Noah Moonen (PhD candidate, UNSW).

 Collective Responsibility for Community Health: The Business Perspective

Tackling the intersection of business, communities and health, this project examines how local businesses can drive positive community health outcomes, and how this in turn impacts business resilience and productivity Anchored in evidence that the UK lost £56 billion in 2022 due to illness-related absences, the study will develop a framework to guide future research on collective responsibility in public health.

With Professor Laura J Spence (Professor of Business Ethics, King’s Business School) and Dr Siavash Alimadadi (Research Fellow, Centre for Sustainable Business). Partners: Dr Britt Regal (Research Fellow at the Better Health and Care Hub), Professor Annette Boaz (Director, NIHR Health and Social Care Workforce), Elena Wilson (Director, London Engagement, King’s College London), and Lambeth Council Health Determinants Research Collaboration (Lambeth Heart).

Democratising Local Climate Action

This project explores how purpose-driven networks can foster cross-sector collaboration and innovation to build local climate resilience. Local climate partnerships often aim to ensure that those most vulnerable to climate hazards benefit from climate action by bringing together businesses, public agencies, community groups, and local governments. The study aims to better understanding of how network orchestration and expansion can encourage broader engagement and strengthen community voice.

With Dr Britt Regal (Research Fellow at the Better Health and Care Hub), and Dr Anna Rebmann (Lecturer in Social Entrepreneurship, King’s Business School).

Making Resilience Work: Organising Flood Governance Across Institutions in the Thames Basin

This project explores how institutions in the Thames region work together to manage growing flood risks driven by climate change. Rather than focusing on infrastructure alone, it examines how coordination between public bodies, insurers, and local authorities shapes resilience. With a spotlight on new approaches like Property Flood Resilience (PFR), the study aims to improve sustainable and collaborative flood governance.

With Dr Basak Yakis-Douglas (Senior Lecturer in International Business Strategy, King’s Business School), Professor Jarzabkowski (Bayes Business School and University of Queensland), Dr Konstantinos Chalkias (Birkbeck University of London)

Do Retail Investors Care About Environmental and Social Performance of Firms?

The current understanding of retail investors’ perceptions and attitudes towards the environmental and social (ES) performance of businesses is underexplored. Relying on large-scale surveys and in-depth interviews, this project will examine whether retail investors care about ES performance of businesses when making investment decisions. It aims to provide insight for firms, fund managers, and regulators on the relevant ES practices.

With Dr Zhong Chen (Senior Lecturer in Finance, King’s Business School), Dr Siu Kai Choy (Reader in Accounting and Finance, King’s Business School), Professor Crawford Spence (Professor of Accounting, King’s Business School).

Promoting Sustainable Consumption: Innovative Marketing Practices on Hackney’s Street Markets

Focusing on Hackney’s vibrant street markets this research explores their role as hubs for sustainable consumption. Applying the Photovoice method, the project will document current sustainable marketing practices among traders . Garnered insights will support the development of a (digital) marketing mini toolkit that the Borough’s Street Trading Office can use for upskilling existing and new traders.

With Dr Anna Dubiel (Senior Lecturer in Marketing, King’s Business School) and Dr Carolin Decker-Lange (Senior Lecturer in Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Brunel Business School)

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Congratulations again to the 2025 CSB Seed Fund winners, and we look forward to seeing their progress as it lays the foundation to shaping sustainable business practice in the UK and beyond.

We’ll be sharing updates of our Fund awardees on our LinkedIn page, make sure to follow our page for upcoming news.

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This article was brought to you by the Centre for Sustainable Business. Find out more about their work here.