WALCC and Synocus hosted Transformative Collaboration event on 30.6.2021

Together with Synocus and its ecosystem partners, the WALCC hosted an online Ecosystem Forum just before the summer holiday season on 30.06.2021.

Under the theme ‘transformative collaboration’, the speakers from the World Alliance for Low Carbon Cities, MEX Finland, Intralogistixx, and Nordic Urban Mobility Ecosystems shared their experiences from recent successful collaborations, new offering developments, and upcoming trends in transformations for sustainability.

Johan Wallin opened the event, underlining the importance of openness and mutual trust within ecosystem communities as the essential factor for innovative, genuine collaboration and transformative societal excellence.

Pasi Mikkonen, Chairman of the World Alliance for Low Carbon Cities and Vice-President, Investments at Fortum, showed how collaboration during the WALCC-supported Excellence in Renewal project led to implementations in the low-carbon transformation journey towards carbon-neutrality in Fortum and the City of Espoo’s joint Clean Heat endeavor.

The MEX Finland ecosystem and its new OSME initiative were presented by Jarmo Kuikka from Tasowheel. OSME (Open Smart Manufacturing Ecosystems) involves several MEX Finland members in working on institutionalized processes for open manufacturing ecosystem collaborations. Wärtsilä, with its Smart Technology Hub Vaasa, is heading the OSME initiative.

Peter Lindgren of ABB spoke about ABB’s ambitions for its Business Finland-financed Veturi (Leading Company challenge) project in relation to the future trends for sustainable and resilient energy systems. Balancing between electricity-heat-hydrogen-P2X products in future, weather-dependent power generation requires collaboration with public and private partners. ABB is optimizing system-level energy efficiency with its Green Electrification 2035 program.

Fredrik Pressler of Posintra introduced the Kilpilahti Decarbonization Transformation. The move towards an international decarbonization competence center by 2030 calls for collaborative efforts and participatory planning from public and private partners in the Kilpilahti area and beyond.

Jussi Hulkkonen shared the beginning of a new initiative called Empowering Low-Carbon Cities (ELCC), an exploration into how cities, aiming for low-carbon development, can collaborate more effectively with technology and service providers on solutions that contribute to their decarbonization objectives. ELCC has started a survey involving progressive cities and technology providers and will continue during summer and fall. Results of the survey will be presented at the WALCC Forum in Lahti this November.

The second half of the event was dedicated to the Intralogistixx ecosystem (IXX), and its synergies with other ecosystems. Logistics are interwoven in urban mobility systems as well as in manufacturing processes. Three anchor members of IXX presented their collaboration experiences while moving towards data- and automation-driven solutions, stressing (as other speakers had done before) the importance of trust and openness within the ecosystem community.

Jukka Viinikainen of Logisnext Finland spoke about the next generation of manufacturing logistics by forging integrations for digital service solutions from IoT, AI, Big Data, and other technologies into an integration layer. Through collaboration, new digital services have been developed from fleet management to maintenance systems.

Orfer’s CEO Jussi Muikku presented the automated mixed palletizing solution, which was one concrete achievement from the Intralogistixx development project supported by Business Finland. Orfer’s solutions increase logistical efficiency, safety, and sustainability and Orfer is looking forward to collaborating with manufacturing companies when developing next-generation logistical solutions.

K. Hartwall is integrating automation, robotics, and IoT into their expertise in producing load carrier systems, therefore, improving utilization, sustainability, and flexibility. The bulk of K. Hartwall’s sales goes abroad, and in this respect, K. Hartwall can also support the internationalization of the ongoing development initiatives.

The discussion during the event was lively, and many positive synergies were uncovered from various participants. With fresh sparks of energy from this event, we look forward to continuing the dialogue with our partners immediately at the beginning of August.

A thank you to all speakers and those joining us in the audience for your participation and commitment! Let’s build on this momentum together!

Join Synocus and our ecosystem partners at upcoming events:

MEX Alihankintamessut 21.-23.9.2021 in Tampere
WALCC FORUM 23.-24.11.2021 in Lahti