Kestävän liiketoiminnan startup-pohjaisen innovaatiomallin kehittäminen

Tässä raportissa tarkastellaan DemosHelsinki Peloton Clubin piirissä syntynyttä startup-yritystoimintaa ja sen roolia kestävän kehityksen yritystoiminnan kentässä ja kasvuyrityskentässä. Hankkeessa etsittiin vastauksia kysymyksiin 1) Miten ja miksi uusia kasvuyrityksiä syntyy ympäristöliiketoiminnan kenttään ja 2) miten Peloton Club -toiminta tukee uusien yritysten syntyä ja kehitystä. Hanke toteutettiin Aalto-yliopiston ja DemosHelsingin yhteistyönä Liikesivistysrahaston tuella

Towards low-carbon district heating : Investigating the socio-technical challenges of the urban energy transition

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The AuthorsDistrict heating is a major energy infrastructure in many urban settlements in the world, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Decarbonising district heating is an important step towards the realisation of a carbon-neutral society that entails considerable socio-technical change. Building on sustainability transitions literature that has dealt with socio-technical reconfiguration, this paper investigates the barriers to the implementation of a low-carbon district heating system that is based on biomass incineration minimisation and the total phasing out of fossil fuels. Empirically, the study relies on an extensive stakeholder analysis that involved 44 organisations representing technology providers, energy companies, industry organisations, policymakers, local authorities and researchers. The results show that while several stakeholder groups could converge on key issues such as the need to support certain technological niches and the danger of a biomass lock-in, divergences regarding barriers to be removed existed between policymakers, new entrant firms, and building owners. Cities were considered important actors for the implementation of the proposed low-carbon district heating concept. However, they should encourage building owners' participation in demand response schemes, decentralized renewable energy production, and the re-design of local electricity networks to support district heating electrification.Peer reviewe

Accelerating clean energy solutions in buildings with the governmental programme : Policy recommendation

Suomen kasvihuonekaasupäästöistä noin kolmasosa on peräisin rakentamisesta, rakennusten käytöstä sekä rakennusmateriaalien valmistamisesta. Jotta päästöt saadaan Suomessa riittävän nopeasti vähenemään, rakennusten puhtaiden energiaratkaisujen vauhdittaminen on välttämätöntä. Tähän voidaan päästä kiristämällä määräysten tasoa ja luomalla kannustimia uusien ja korjattavien rakennusten päästöjen vähentämiseksi

Developing Policy Pathways : Redesigning Transition Arenas for Mid-range Planning

Sustainability transitions require new policy pathways that significantly reduce the environmental impacts caused by, for example, energy production, mobility and food production. Transition management (TM) is one of the approaches aiming at the creation of new ways to govern transitions. It uses transitions arenas (TA) as a key process and platform where new policy pathways are created in collaboration with multiple (frontrunner) stakeholders. TM’s ambitious and demanding agenda is not easy to implement. There is a continued need for testing and developing new ways of carrying out its key processes. We redesigned the TA process in the context of energy system change in Finland by 2030, focusing on interim goals, mid-range change pathways and developing a new notation system that allows participants to directly create the pathways. The resulting renewed TA process results in more specific and detailed mid-range pathways that provide more concreteness to how to implement long-term transition goals. It helps to bridge long-term national visions/strategies and low carbon experiments that are already running. The Finnish TA work created eight ambitious change pathways, pointing towards new and revised policy goals for Finland and identifying specific policy actions. Evaluation of the TA, 6–9 months after its completion underscores that an effective TA needs to be embedded by design in the particular political context that it seeks to influence. It is too early to say to what degree the pathways will be followed in practice but there are positive signs already

Renewal of forest based manufacturing towards a sustainable circular bioeconomy

Environmental problems, combined with European Union environmental and energy policies shaped to address them, have created pressures for change. Some of these open significant opportunities to renew industries. This report delivers new understanding of the potential of circular economy for sustainable renewal of manufacturing in bio-based industries. With particular focus on novel value chains, it provides novel insights into the role of innovation policies in facilitating the shift towards sustainable, circular bioeconomy in Finland and Sweden. The textile and multi-storey wood construction sectors, and emergent biorefineries are utilised as case studies that deepen understanding of the circular bioeconomy, its opportunities, barriers, and impacts, and the policies that affect its emergence. Recent developments of bioeconomy and circular economy solutions and governance in the Netherlands are also summarised in order to deliver contrasting context to the Nordic focus countries. In this work, the bioeconomy is conceptualised as an economy where the basic building blocks for materials, chemicals and energy are derived from renewable biological resources, such as plant and animal biomass. The essence of the circular economy, that is used here, lies in maximisation of added value and in making the best use of any extracted raw material. This analysis shows that to date discussions and activities related to the promotion of bioeconomy and circular economy have largely been separate efforts, but there are signs that the discussions may converge. It finds that while the form of developments are similar in Finland and in Sweden in the case areas (i.e. textiles, wood construction and biorefineries), there are also clear differences in the strengths of the countries. Evidence is found that such strengths offer potential to develop world leadership in a circular bioeconomy. The report identifies policy recommendations to support renewal of manufacturing in the wood based industries towards a sustainable circular bioeconomy

The approaches of strategic environmental management used by mining companies in Finland

Global megatrends such as scarcity of natural resources and urbanization have been the drivers for a mining sector upswing. Therefore, the mining sector in Finland, with attractive ore geology, has recently experienced rapid growth and new mines have been opened. At the same time, society's expectations have increased, resulting in a public debate on mining companies' environmental and social responsibility. Companies have the same positioning choices relative to their competitors, but environmental issues are a new area of interest in order to stand out strategically. In this study of companies with mining operations in Finland, strategic environmental management practices are examined based on companies' own public information. This article takes a closer look at whether their public reporting projects an image of strategic environmental management. The results show that environmental and social considerations are essential elements in companies' commitments and strengthen their business strategy. This study also shows a gap between strategic commitments and their implementation, based on the company reports. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Market organizing in the European Union's biofuels market

Market creation as such is a relevant policy instrument in sustainability transformations that merits further examination. The regulatory creation of the European Union (EU) biofuels market has been a highly contested policy instrument, largely because of its atypical nature, as biofuels became one of the most controversial renewable energies. This paper combines the literature of market organization and meta-organizations as conceptual lenses to analyse the dynamics and challenges of market creation through policy-making with sustainability goals. A longitudinal qualitative analysis of the EU biofuels market in 2003–2015 is conducted to examine contested policy-making and heterogeneous implementation as two key elements shaping the dynamics and outcomes of market organization. The analysis shows that market organization developed as three organizing schemes—favouring a product group, specifying acceptability for the product group, and establishing preferences within the product group—that redefined market boundaries and signalled innovation incentives but potentially undermined the policy goals of market growth. The findings show that this reorganization produced intertemporal discrepancies and tensions between conflicting policy aims, which partly explain the previously observed inconsistencies within transnational market-creation policies. Accordingly, the market organization and meta-organization literature are proposed as useful conceptual tools to analyse sustainability-driven market creation policies.Peer reviewe

Low carbon transition in Finnish mobility: the clash of experimental governance and established practices?

No description supplie