Finland as a forerunner in the clean transformation

The annual World Alliance for Low Carbon Cities Forum was this year arranged in Porvoo and Espoo on October 21st and 22nd. This year’s Forum was designed to support the Green Deal Going Local initiative, chaired by Markku Markkula. This initiative aims to engage public and private sector organizations in closer collaboration to accelerate the clean transformation.

The Forum culminated in the presentation of a declaration to Joakim Strand, Finland’s Minister for EU Affairs and Ownership Steering. The declaration sets an aim for Finland to capitalize on its leading position in the clean transformation. The aim is to integrate local Finnish springboards with national and EU-level policies. This should ensure the multi-level governance needed for maximum impact. Finland can lead by example as a European role model for systemic transformation by:

• Orchestrating city–industry–university ecosystems around Local Green Deals and industrial hubs with measurable outcomes.
• Scaling footprint and handprint innovations that generate economic, environmental, social, and cultural value.
• Mobilizing Finnish initiatives to contribute to EU Moonshot Missions, European Partnerships, and European Research Area (ERA) Actions.
• Using GDGL as a framework to demonstrate how multi-level governance operates effectively in practice.

The Forum’s first day focused on how to develop the hydrogen economy in Finland with inputs from companies such as ABB, Blastr, Fortum, Liquid Sun, Neste, and Solar Foods. Here, ABB’s H2 Springboard program, funded by Business Finland, aims to integrate innovations needed to accelerate the hydrogen economy.

The second day of the Forum turned attention to the City of Espoo’s partnership with Fortum and Microsoft. This has resulted in the world-leading waste heat recovery solution from the Hepokorpi data center covering the district heating needs for 250,000 Fortum customers. This springboard effort around the data center is expected to result in additional innovations.

The Forum signaled a strong interest among the participants in making Finland a forerunner in the clean transformation and spreading awareness of its strong capabilities to achieve change internationally. WALCC, together with Synocus and Markku Markkula, will now develop the action plan for how Finland can strengthen the Green Deal Going Local initiative. This work will also be supported by Minister Strand to agree on what will be the best way to communicate these ambitions at EU level.