Rebecca Scholten MSc.

“Doing science is questioning in the broad sense of the word: asking questions and doubting answers. Scientific understanding is for those who are not satisfied with just answers to questions, but need also to know why it is an answer to the question. In other words, in scientific understanding it is of central importance that one can understand how an answer answers a question. Answering questions in such a way is explanation and consequently explanation is a way to understanding.”

 Towards Transition Theory, J. de Haan 

Rebecca Scholten MSc. is a PhD Researcher at Nyenrode Business University. She is part of Nyenrode’s faculty for Entrepreneurship, Governance and Stewardship. Scholten applies mix-method research approaches to deliver practical tools and business useful information to support the improvement of climate change mitigation efforts by companies. Hereby she aims to reduce the gap between theory and practice of organizational research.

Before working at Nyenrode, she was Senior Sustainable Business Executive at Gard, an international marine insurance company based in Norway and Assistant Director & Head of Sustainability at EY in the Netherlands. She has extensive business experience with sustainability accounting and reporting (Integrated Reporting, GRI, CSRD), sustainability strategy development & execution, science-based target setting as well as with climate risks & opportunities strategy development and reporting (TCFD). During her time at Gard and EY she was a recurring guest lecturer for Nyenrode’s full-time MBA program for the course Circular Economy and Sustainable Development. 

As a lecturer for Nyenrode’s Fulltime MBA her key focus is bringing her research and other sustainability theories to life by sharing with students what it means to be a change agent in a (multinational) corporation. She also discusses career paths for students wishing to pursue careers in Sustainability and tries to help them to uncover various options to get involved in such activities through their business careers. One of the main reasons for doing this is that she believes that sharing experiences and insights can help to build a deeper understanding of how the business world can respond to the challenges of sustainability. Her hope is that more and more young people will join in in sustainability related dialogues to increase the speed of real action and impactful results for sustainable development in the world.   ​

Scholten holds a Master’s degree in Sustainability Science and Policy with a specialization in Sustainability Accounting and Reporting from the University of Maastricht (the Netherlands) and a Master's degree in Sustainability Leadership with a specialization in Climate Change Risks & Opportunities from the University of Cambridge (UK).

Relevant publications

• The Impact of Climate Change in the Valuation of Production Assets via the IFRS Framework (degruyter.com)
• (PDF) CORPORATE CLIMATE CHANGE RISK REPORTING AT SECTOR LEVEL (researchgate.net)