12 April 2012

BIOECONOMY FORUM FINLAND 2012

Helsinki Music Centre, Mannerheimintie 13, Helsinki, Finland

Keynote speakers: 
President Tarja Halonen - Global sustainability, a choice worth choosing
Dr. Sydney Brenner, Nobel Prize Laureate - The importance of fundamental research for bioeconomy

Programme and presentations (pdf)

12:30 Opening words, Erkki KM Leppävuori, President & CEO, VTT

12:45 Global sustainability, a choice worth choosing, Tarja Halonen, President

13:10 The importance of fundamental research for bioeconomy, Sydney Brenner, Nobel Prize Laureate

13:55 From petro-based to plant-based packaging: What difference 50 million years make!, Klaus Peter Stadler, Director, Coca-Cola GmbH

14:25 Case St1 Biofuels and energy perspectives, Mika Anttonen, Chairman, St1

15:30 Sustainability as a business driver - Fulfilling futue needs from biomass, Robert Kirschbaum, VP, Open Innovation, DSM

16:00 Forest-based sector, enabler of the bio-based society, Markku Karlsson

16:30 Keeping an eye on the bioeconomy, Colja Laane, Director, Netherlands Genomics Initiative

17:00 VTT highlights on bioeconomy, Niklas von Weymarn, Johanna Buchert & Ali Harlin, VTT

17:30 - 18:00 From visions to actions - VTT as a quarterback, Anne-Christine Ritschkoff, Executive VP, Strategic Research, VTT

Moderator: André Noël Chaker

Follow the seminar as a live broadcast at 12.30 pm on 12 April.

See also photos of the event.

The Industrial Revolution reshaped the world into its current state. A philosophy based on unlimited resources and demand is, however, coming to an end, especially in terms of material and energy supply. Notably, elsewhere, the waste mountains are increasingly growing. Hence, the current paradigm must be changed. Societies must become less material and energy intensive. On the other hand, completely new industrial ecosystems will be built. In such ecosystems, for instance, creation of value must be increasingly based on the function of the product, not the quantity of the product. VTT acknowledges this change and the technical possibilities, and challenges global forerunners to a constructive discussion about the future. VTT’s mission is to be a generator of smart solutions for the industrial ecosystems of tomorrow.