Visions on desirable and sustainable futures

Six visions on desirable and sustainable futures were developed by 42 citizens in the CIMULACT NCV workshop in Helsinki on January 9th, 2016 :

  1. VALUES – immateriality and minimalism
  2. Predictive health tracking
  3. Efficient recycling
  4. The future of responsible consumption
  5. Eco-efficient nutrition and living
  6. Community as an asset

The NCV workshop in Helsinki was part of a series of CIMULACT workshops across 30 European countries, contributing to a total of 180 citizen visions. These visions will be developed to research priorities and policy advice for the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme at latter stages of the CIMULACT project.

More information on the CIMULACT project is available at www.cimulact.eu.

Seuraavat kuusi visiota toivottavista ja kestävistä tulevaisuuksista kehitettiin 42 kansalaisen toimesta CIMULACT-työpajassa Helsingissä 9.1.2016 :

  1. ARVOT – aineettomuus ja minimalismi
  2. Ennakoivaa terveyden seurantaa
  3. Tehokas kierrättäminen
  4. Vastuullisen kuluttamisen tulevaisuus
  5. Ekotehokas ravinto ja asuminen
  6. Yhteisö voimavarana

Helsingin visiotyöpaja oli osa CIMULACT-hankkeen toteuttamaa työpajasarjaa, jossa kansalaiset kehittivät 180 visiota 30 Euroopan maassa. Visioiden pohjalta hankkeessa kehitetään tutkimusprioriteettejä ja politiikkasuosituksia Euroopan komission Horisontti 2020 –ohjelmaan.

Lisätietoa CIMULACT-hankkeesta ja sen etenemisestä löytyy osoitteesta www.cimulact.eu.

Nudge and experimentation – appreciatively critical analysis of experiences

Experimentation and nudges are two topical buzzwords in Finland at the moment. Because of this, it seems appropriate to share some recent work that examines these concepts in an appreciatively critical way.

Nudging – a tool for sustainable behaviour? is a report for the Swedish EPA by Oksana Mont and Matthias Lehner from IIIEE Lund and Eva Heiskanen from the Consumer Society Research Centre. It examines the usefulness of nudges in established welfare states like Sweden (and Finland). The report is also available in Swedish. These  slides offer a short synopsis.

On the topic of experimentation, this article examines some recent experiences of experimentation in Finland – again from a appreciatively critical perspective. It shows that experiments are always performative. In order to serve as “proof of principle” and encourage people to persist in climate action, local low-carbon experiments cannot afford to fail.

Heiskanen, E, Jalas, M & Rinkinen J (2015) The local community as a low-carbon lab: Promises and perils. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 14: 149-164.

Crowdfunding in sustainable innovation

The take up of innovative services and products has contributed to creative thinking also in terms of new sources of financing. Innovation processes are characterised by constant development, and it is beneficial if models of financing can be aligned to that. Crowdfunding, i.e. collecting finance from publics, has emerged as a new alternative also in the field of sustainable innovation.

This CASI project policy brief looks how crowdfunding relates to EU innovation funding activities (Tregner-Mlinaric, Repo & Matschoss 2015). It introduces crowdfunding as an activity, discusses it in sustainable innovation and argues that the European Commission should enhance its approach to consider crowdfunding as an alternative source of finance for innovation.

You may access the policy brief on crowdfunding and sustainable innovation through this link.

The project “Public Participation in Developing a Common Framework for Assessment and Management of Sustainable Innovation” (CASI) is proposed as a response to one of the Grand Challenges set out in the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union, namely “Climate action, environment resource efficiency and raw materials”.

It represents an EU-wide cross-sectoral partnership on innovation-related challenges and considers not only the impacts of social and technological innovation, but also the types of actors involved and their inherent interests. It thus effectively integrates the perspectives of civil society, SMEs, industry, policy stakeholders, and leading academics.

This collaboration investigates the scope of sustainable innovation as a societal phenomenon and enables the elaboration of an assessment framework of sustainable innovation practices, whose application can be successfully integrated into public policy developments.