Responsibility and sustainable development. Circular economy and environmental business. Topical terms and actions without which it is hard to imagine the business of future. The earth’s sustainability crisis is our common challenge, which concerns us all as humans, consumers and household members. It challenges us in unforeseen ways to question our current methods and boldly innovate new solutions. Empowering tomorrow is created in a sustainable way, together.
At Posintra, our whole staff had the chance to deepen our understanding of sustainable development through a customized training event, “Empowering tomorrow sustainably”. The training was provided by SYKLI Environmental School of Finland.
Over the course of the approximately six-month training, we took five training modules to learn more about the basic principles of sustainable development, circular economy and its opportunities as well as topics such as waste management legislation, environmental business, eco-friendliness as a trend that reshapes the society and reviewing of sustainable business. The training programme’s objective was to enable better overall view of sustainable development as well as better understanding about the current operators, networks, systems and tools. Now, the goal is to implement what we have learned even more efficiently than before to benefit the companies and entrepreneurs in our region and to utilize this information in both our daily advisory services for businesses and in our future development projects.
– The empowering tomorrow sustainably training offered us just what we needed: an up-to-date overall image of what is going on within the different themes and subsections right now, what kinds of operators there are on the field and what kinds of tools are available, says Fredrik Pressler, the Managing Director of Posintra.
– Our goal is to make this information even more widely known in order to support the business advice and development work in the region. We are planning events and training programs related to these topics, as well as a more extensive development project focusing on circular economy, for example. Future can only be built with sustainability in mind, and, on the other hand, circular economy will open up a wide range of various business opportunities for companies, Pressler continues.
FACTS
● Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland Commission 1987).
● The UN’s plan for action, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, aims to eradicate extreme poverty and achieve sustainable development that takes the earth’s capacity into account. It includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets. These need to be achieved by 2030. Achieving these targets will require transitioning to circular economy both in industrialised and developing countries.
● The key ideas of circular economy are that raw materials and other materials will remain in the use of the economy for a long time, materials keep their value and detrimental impacts on the environment will decrease. In the circular economy vision, no more waste is generated, and other operators use the surplus materials as their own raw material. Products are designed to be used again and again.
● Circular economy is not just about efficient use of materials, recycling or green business. Circular economy is also considered a new business model, where value production is more and more often done immaterially, and products are replaced with various services. Items and resources are shared instead of being owned.
● Circular economy will bring companies opportunities for completely new kind of growth. Growth is achieved through diverse value networks, via open cooperation and by boldly utilising different business models. New technologies support all this.
● It has been said that circular economy could even be the most significant change in production, consumption and the entire global economy in 250 years. Sources: SYKLI Environmental School of Finland, Confederation of Finnish Industries.
Sources: SYKLI Environmental School of Finland, Confederation of Finnish Industries.
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