Kansainvälinen kiertotaloustyöpaja 29.-30.1.2020
CIRCULAR ECONOMY WORKSHOP AND ENCORE STEERING GROUP MEETING 29.1.-30.1.2020.
The Finnish national Circular Economy Action Plan emphasises the need to move towards a life-cycle-driven ‘circular’ economy, reusing resources as much as possible and bringing residual waste close to zero. Integrating circular economy approaches in all sectors plays a key role in order to achieve the region’s and municipalities’ carbon neutrality objectives. Circular economy creates also new business opportunities and introduces innovative products and services to the Kymenlaakso region which has suffered from restructuring of the industry and unemployment. The aim was to share approaches and good practices between regions that are facing similar challenges, with a special focus on how to integrate circular economy approach in eco-innovations, traffic, material circulation and food systems and how public administrations can support this. The results will help in defining the most important measures in the region of Kymenlaakso and elsewhere, and provides input for the next ENCORE conference in Ireland 2020. The workshop was organized in cooperation by the Regional Council of Kymenlaakso, ENCORE network, Kouvola Innovation, Cursor and XAMK.
Carbon Neutral Kymenlaakso Region
PRESENTATIONS:
CIRCULAR ECONOMY IN GENERAL
Cases and perspectives from Midtjylland, Kontorchef Rolf Johnsen, Regional Udvikling, Region Midtjylland, Denmark
Group work:
Biosampo Research Centre for bio and circular economy, Head of Department, Juha Solio, Biosampo, South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
Kotkamills -Global Forerunner -developing sustainable fiber based solutions, Development Director Päivi Suutari, Kotkamills
Circular economy approach offers new business opportunities. The EIR country report mentions three barriers for eco-innovation in Finland: (i) a lack of nontechnical, skills, (ii) an insufficient focus on internationalisation, and (iii) too little risk-taking readiness in Finnish business and academic spheres. In the workshop the aim is to share good examples from regions and map the best ways of how to overcome those barriers.
Runway for organic food in South-Eastern Finland, Teija Rautiainen, South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
Group work:
Agriculture is an important sector in the region of Kymenlaakso. But it also creates negative environmental impacts on surface and ground waters as well as greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of the workshop is to find ways to reduce the negative impacts of agriculture by adopting the circular economy approach and to find ways of how the circular economy approach should be included in the public procurement process of food procurements and food waste.
