Maaseudun paikka tulevaisuuden kestävässä yhteiskunnassa

Fossiilitalous on yli satavuotisen historiansa aikana vapauttanut ihmiskunnan paikallisten luonnonvarojen kantokyvyn rajoista, mahdollistanut ennennäkemättömän talouden ja hyvinvoinnin kasvun. Samalla kiihdyttänyt keskittymiskehitystä ja kaupungistumista ja synnyttänyt ilmastonmuutoksen. Irtaantuminen fossiilitaloudesta merkitsee valtavaa yhteiskunnallista murrosta, joka jäsentää uudelleen ruoka-, energia- ja yhdyskuntajärjestelmiä. Tässä Maaseudun paikka tulevaisuuden kestävässä yhteiskunnassa -hankkeessa (MAKE) halusimme tarkastella maaseudun roolia tässä suuressa murroksessa. Hankkeessa tuotetut visiot, kestävän yhteiskunnan ilmentymät ja kestävyysmurroksen kipupisteet voivat toimia keskustelujen ja pohdintojen herättäjinä, syy-seuraussuhteiden hahmottajina sekä nykyhetkessä tehtävien tulevaisuusvalintojen arviointiperusteina. Keskeisenä puutteena uuteen maailmanmalliin siirtymisessä on visioiden puute. Se johtaa moniin ongelmiin: muutosta ei tavoitella määrätietoisesti, ristiriitoja ei tunnisteta ja nykyisen talousmallin perustaa ei kyseenalaisteta. Fossiilitalouden jälkeinen maailman jäsentämistä ja kuvaamista koskeva työ onkin vasta aluillaan. Hanketta on rahoitettu Maaseutupolitiikan neuvosten (MANE) toimesta ja maa- ja metsätalousministeriön Makeran varoista

Planetary well-being

Tensions between the well-being of present humans, future humans, and nonhuman nature manifest in social protests and political and academic debates over the future of Earth. The increasing consumption of natural resources no longer increases, let alone equalises, human well-being, but has led to the current ecological crisis and harms both human and nonhuman well-being. While the crisis has been acknowledged, the existing conceptual frameworks are in some respects ill-equipped to address the crisis in a way that would link the resolving of the crisis with the pivotal aim of promoting equal well-being. The shortcomings of the existing concepts in this respect relate to anthropocentric normative orientation, methodological individualism that disregards process dynamics and precludes integrating the considerations of human and nonhuman well-being, and the lack of multiscalar considerations of well-being. This work derives and proposes the concept of planetary well-being to address the aforementioned conceptual issues, to recognise the moral considerability of both human and nonhuman well-being, and to promote transdisciplinary, cross-cultural discourse for addressing the crisis and for promoting societal and cultural transformation. Conceptually, planetary well-being shifts focus on well-being from individuals to processes, Earth system and ecosystem processes, that underlie all well-being. Planetary well-being is a state where the integrity of Earth system and ecosystem processes remains unimpaired to a degree that species and populations can persist to the future and organisms have the opportunity to achieve well-being. After grounding and introducing planetary well-being, this work shortly discusses how the concept can be operationalised and reflects upon its potential as a bridging concept between different worldviews.</p

Transition in the Finnish forest-based sector : Company perspectives on the bioeconomy, circular economy and sustainability

The forest-based sector is affected by many profound structural changes and the increasing complexity of the business environment due to, for example, the mature markets of many core products and the aims for bio and circular economies and more sustainable societies. In response to the changing business environment, forest-based sector firms need to restructure their business models and develop new products and services. From the Finnish perspective, new forest-based businesses are crucial in the transition to successful and sustainable bio and circular economies. Views on the concepts of bioeconomy, circular economy and sustainability vary according to which parties are involved. Developing new forest-based sector businesses requires that different actors have knowledge of how each understands these concepts because this creates a basis for commonly accepted goals. This study aims to shed light on how forest-based sector companies understand the concepts of bioeconomy and circular and their linkages to sustainability when transforming their businesses. Semi-structured thematic interviews were conducted with 18 company executives and managers from 17 forest-based sector firms and companies from interfacing sectors, all of which have operations in Finland. The results indicate that there are various understandings of the studied concepts and that they are strongly interlinked. The participating firms often saw themselves as forerunners of circular bioeconomy, highlighting the core role of sustainability and reliance on “reasonable use of wood” and far-reaching, in-depth Finnish expertise in the field. Bioeconomy was usually seen as a response to climate challenge by bio-based, renewable material. The key dichotomy was whether bioeconomy should include traditional, bulk forest-based products or should it be dedicated to new, innovative, higher value-added products only. Another challenge was how to target and guarantee the availability of wood-based biomass for different purposes. Circular economy was characterized by resource efficiency, closed loops, recycling and collaboration. The challenges here was leaning too much on old practices whereas more emphasis should be put on inventing innovative collaborations and products. The sustainability discussion was focused on raw material sustainability and on the importance of Finnish forests as carbon sequesters and the sustainable volumes of wood-biomass utilized, whereas biodiversity went largely unnoticed.peerReviewe

Backcasting for desirable futures in Finnish forest-based firms

Purpose In Finland, new forest-based sector (FBS) businesses are seen as important for the transition to the circular bioeconomy. The purpose of this study is to explore the transition of Finnish FBS companies to new business models. The aim is to understand how FBS companies define their ideal future states and related business models for the year 2030. Design/methodology/approach This study uses thematic interviews with managers from various FBS firms and companies from interfacing sectors. In the interviews, the key idea of backcasting was pursued when respondents discussed the desirable future states of their business. Findings The effort to achieve growth of the business and the appearance of new products characterize the company-specific desirable future states. In these desirable futures, expanded businesses will be based on strong knowledge. Resource efficiency and collaboration create a strong basis for the desirable future state of the whole FBS to create a sustainable and innovative “Wood Valley.” Research limitations/implications The key limitations are that the backcasting process has been conducted only through interviews and a participative approach with stakeholder dialogue is lacking in the process. This means that the desirable futures are created by the FBS companies only. Originality/value As a practical contribution, the study shows the future-oriented thinking and goals of FBS firms. As a theoretical contribution, it extends research on sustainable business models and discussions on the novel field of corporate foresight.peerReviewe

Finnish forest-based companies in transition to the circular bioeconomy : drivers, organizational resources and innovations

Overall, this study indicates that in order to successfully manage the transition, companies need to have a deep understanding of what is needed, required and accepted by the markets and society, and they must develop the organizational resources and capabilities to sustainably respond to these requirements. It is important to note, however, that in addition to the current needs, companies must prepare for future needs and challenges, meaning that achieving long-term competiveness requires future-oriented strategic thinking. It also needs to be remembered that this transition is not dependent only on the companies; wide-scale societal effort is also needed.peerReviewe

Exploring the unknowns : State of the art in qualitative forest-based sector foresight research

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The AuthorsThe forest-based sector is facing one the greatest transitions in its history in the face of global megatrends. Globalization, sustainability challenges and the ICT sector have put the world in a new light. Whereas some of the recent developments have resulted in challenges for the traditional forest industry, many positive expectations and opportunities are also seen to arise in the form of the transition to a sustainable bio-economy. However, to be able to fully seize the opportunity, the industry has to navigate through contingency where preparedness can have a major impact. Foresight as a strategic approach can help to prepare and sensitize decision-makers to be prepared for the future. Foresight is a process aimed at understanding the various and alternative developments of the future better. In this review, we aim to find out what the state-of-the-art of qualitative foresight in the context of forest-based sector is. Forest sector foresight remains a nascent stream in peer-reviewed literature despite the small increase in articles since 2010. Foresight has been applied relatively evenly across the sub-sectors, attention having been predominantly on adaptive approaches. Foresight studies could be classified based on their objectives and types of output into three main categories: Identifying Drivers and Trends, Management of Change and Visioning. Notably, almost all the scientific foresight literature deals with sectoral level, and lacks organisational points of view. Foresight could also provide an opportunity to include stakeholder engagement beyond business-as-usual, which seems to remain currently relatively marginal. The findings suggests that foresight in the forest sector is not entirely novel, but still developing. Many opportunities to fully capture the potential lie ahead and micro level perspectives could be enhanced in the literature.Peer reviewe

Maaseudun paikka tulevaisuuden kestävässä yhteiskunnassa

Fossiilitalous on yli satavuotisen historiansa aikana vapauttanut ihmiskunnan paikallisten luonnonvarojen kantokyvyn rajoista, mahdollistanut ennennäkemättömän talouden ja hyvinvoinnin kasvun. Samalla kiihdyttänyt keskittymiskehitystä ja kaupungistumista ja synnyttänyt ilmastonmuutoksen. Irtaantuminen fossiilitaloudesta merkitsee valtavaa yhteiskunnallista murrosta, joka jäsentää uudelleen ruoka-, energia- ja yhdyskuntajärjestelmiä. Tässä Maaseudun paikka tulevaisuuden kestävässä yhteiskunnassa -hankkeessa (MAKE) halusimme tarkastella maaseudun roolia tässä suuressa murroksessa. Hankkeessa tuotetut visiot, kestävän yhteiskunnan ilmentymät ja kestävyysmurroksen kipupisteet voivat toimia keskustelujen ja pohdintojen herättäjinä, syy-seuraussuhteiden hahmottajina sekä nykyhetkessä tehtävien tulevaisuusvalintojen arviointiperusteina. Keskeisenä puutteena uuteen maailmanmalliin siirtymisessä on visioiden puute. Se johtaa moniin ongelmiin: muutosta ei tavoitella määrätietoisesti, ristiriitoja ei tunnisteta ja nykyisen talousmallin perustaa ei kyseenalaisteta. Fossiilitalouden jälkeinen maailman jäsentämistä ja kuvaamista koskeva työ onkin vasta aluillaan. Hanketta on rahoitettu Maaseutupolitiikan neuvosten (MANE) toimesta ja maa- ja metsätalousministeriön Makeran varoista.nonPeerReviewe