Decarbonizing is a competitive edge

Finland is leading the way to a Zero carbon future by boosting new innovations and long-term business opportunities globally. Since the industrial sector’s emissions are massive, producing more sustainable solutions is vital to reach the global emission targets and limit global warming to 1,5 °C degrees. Reaching the carbon target requires deep reductions in emissions in every industrial sector.

Finland wants to be a forerunner in providing solutions and innovations that can decarbonize whole value chains. In addition to the world’s first circular economy roadmap, 14 Finnish industries have introduced their low carbon industry roadmaps. The purpose of the roadmaps is to illustrate the measures that need to be taken to become carbon neutral by 2035, that is Finland’s ambitious target. The roadmaps conclude that carbon neutrality by 2035 is fully achievable with existing or upcoming technologies, but drastic measures need to be taken.

The industries that highlight the Finnish competence in decarbonizing solutions are steel & metal, pulp & paper, food & beverage, and chemical and textile industries. Finland’s proficiency in decarbonizing is based on a suitable business environment, highly skilled workforce, and world’s leading competence in material and energy efficiency, bio-based products, and services. Utilizing bio-based products, decarbonizing as a service-model and improved material and energy efficiency can reduce a whole value chain’s carbon emission.

Decarbonizing enablers and solutions 

Decreasing the carbon emission of industries can be done by discovering new and innovative technologies and utilizing already existing methods throughout the value chain. Current ways to reduce carbon emissions from the industrial sector are material and process efficiency and utilizing renewable energy. Promising technologies that are on the near horizon are improved digitalization and nature-based solutions. At present new opportunities for fuel switching and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) are actively researched, and these technologies are expected to be in commercial use in 5-10 years.  

Finland is a bioeconomy country that excels in digitalization and circular economy. All these methods are key enablers of decarbonizing industry and can be utilized in different industrial sectors.

Bioeconomy enables a transition to more sustainable primary production and processing systems. We can produce more food, fiber and other bio-based products with fewer inputs, less environmental impact, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.   

Digitalization provides the foundation for new and more sustainable business models by enabling cooperation, transparency, and data processing.   

Circular economy offers solutions to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss as it utilizes natural resources more sustainably by keeping them in circulation for a longer time.  

In addition to the world’s class competence in key enablers of decarbonizing, Finland’s advantages are the best business environment in the world, strong sustainability efforts, the best digital competitiveness in the EU and the best digital skills in the world.

Why decarbonization is a must

Lowering carbon emissions and mitigating and adapting to climate change is a global matter, but it is also a competitive advantage. Multiple global drivers are impacting on the demand to speed up the process of decarbonizing industry. Regulations and pressure from consumers, investors and governments set up the direction for the future, that is carbon free. Sustainability is no longer a choice, but it needs to be a must for every organization.

Scope 3 emission refers to the emission from direct and indirect activities, hence it measures emission throughout the value chain. Companies can multiply their positive climate impact by decarbonizing their supply chains and gain a notable competitive edge. Proven solutions and innovations that can be applied to a part of a long value chain can have a favorable climate impact also in countries where the regulator pressure is lower.

Target groups

Target groups of the program are companies that have scalable solutions to decarbonize industries and want to get access to global markets and companies, that want to develop technologies and solutions to decarbonize their processes.