Pöyry celebrates its 60th anniversary with an epic ‘Carbon Clash’ event

HELSINKI, 14-Nov-2018 — /EuropaWire/ — Pöyry is today hosting an epic ‘Carbon Clash’ event in the iconic Finlandia Hall, Helsinki, in celebration of its 60th anniversary. Attended by over 250 industry leaders and world-class experts, the Carbon Clash is set to ignite opinion and spark ideas for tackling climate change. The theme of the conference is ‘low carbon solutions’. The big focus areas will include the decarbonisation of energy and the substitution of single-use plastics with bio-based products.

Henrik Ehrnrooth, Chairman of Pöyry PLC, comments, ‘Today’s Carbon Clash is about connecting up the best brains to rigorously debate the solutions needed to urgently solve this generational challenge. Every person in the room yearns for a cleaner society for their children and grandchildren to thrive in. By working together we will forge new concepts that bring about impactful change and create a lasting legacy that we can all be proud of.’

‘I am delighted that so many long-standing clients of Pöyry are able to make it, as well as globally respected climate change gurus such as Louis Blumberg, Climate Policy Consultant, San Francisco, California’ Henrik adds.

‘California is implementing strategies confronting several of the same issues under discussion in the EU, including transportation, agriculture and forestry.  By sharing information and experience, we can improve our planning and address the key challenge of our generation, global climate change,’ comments Louis Blumberg.

Irene Mia, Global Editorial Director of Thought Leadership at The Economist Group will be moderating the Carbon Clash. Irene comments, ‘Given the urgency of the challenge, if we want to build a sustainable future, new and innovative solutions are needed, together with a joint stakeholder approach. I’m looking forward to seeing the insight and creative ideas that the Pöyry Carbon Clash event will hopefully generate.’

More about the Carbon Clash

Two clashes: ‘Electricity vs. Biofuels’ and ‘Biopackaging – Beyond Plastics’

At the heart of the expert seminar event, four industry bosses will go head-to-head in two ‘clashes’. They will probe the different low carbon solutions for addressing climate change.

In the first clash, titled ‘Electricity vs. Biofuels’, Pekka Lundmark, President & CEO of the clean energy company Fortum will take to the stage opposite Mika Anttonen, Chairman of the Nordic fuel distributor, St1. Options for the decarbonisation of energy will be examined.

The clash will be moderated by Richard Sarsfield-Hall, Director, Pöyry Management Consulting, and lead author of the report titled, Fully Decarbonising Europe’s Energy System by 2050. ‘Today’s clash comes just one month after the IPCC issued its special report, titled Global Warming of 1.5 °C,’ comments Richard. ‘The scale of the challenge is huge and requires an economy wide reduction of emissions across Europe from 4,000 MtC02e to 275 MtC02e by 2050. That’s a massive gap and requires a transformational deep commitment from consumers, industry and policymakers alike. The big question is ‘Who is driving decarbonisation and is it enough?’

The second clash tackles the growing problem of the ‘plastic planet’ and the ‘plastic ocean’. Titled ‘Biopackaging – Beyond plastics’, two passionate founders of the biopackaging start-ups Sulapac and Paptic, will pitch their innovative bio-based products that are designed to replace single-use plastics.

Suivi Haimi, CEO and Co-founder of Sulapac comments, ‘We should make it way easier for consumers to understand what is a truly sustainable choice. I believe that materials should be divided into microplastic-free and microplastic releasing so that everybody would understand which can be digested by naturally occurring micro-organisms and which will last hundreds of years in nature. With new material innovations and improved recycling systems we still can save the world from plastic waste!’

Tuomas Mustonen, Founder and Managing Director of Paptic comments, “The generations before us filled the air with carbon dioxide, our generation should not be remembered as the one who filled the oceans with plastics!”

Clash moderator, Saara Soderberg, Head of Pöyry Management Consulting (Industry), comments, ‘I am inspired by the solutions that Sulapac and Paptic are presenting in today’s Carbon Clash. The single largest end use for plastics is polyethylene used in packaging, with around 42 Mt used every year. If this could be substituted for paper and bio-based products, it would avoid approximately 250 Mt of CO2e every year, which would in turn reduce total global emissions, which currently stand at 51Gt CO2e.’

Saara continues, ‘In July, Pöyry launched its pioneering Global Plastics Substitution Consultancy. I am immensely excited by how much interest we are receiving from companies around the world including several Fortune 500 multi-nationals. Our experts are creating concrete roadmaps for plastics substitution and contributing to long term sustainability.’

Driving for innovation and two start-up ‘roasts’

Driving for innovation is a feature of the Carbon Clash. Martin à Porta, President & CEO of Pöyry PLC, comments, ‘A market shift is happening towards a New Economy based on C02. By putting a price on C02 you create a mechanism for driving change. Electric Vehicles (EVs) are just one market where that battle against C02 emissions has fueled innovation, but there are many other examples too, such as the development of ground-source heat pumps.

Martin continues, ‘At Pöyry, only by empowering every one of our 5500 intrapreneurs will we generate the level and pace of innovation needed to respond to the expectations of our clients. Our experts are creating purposeful solutions that address the megatrends and they have told us that they feel more energised and excited about the new things that we’re doing – many of which embrace digitalisation. Since investing in our modern intrapreneurial culture, Pöyry has reported nine consecutive quarters of improvement. Adjusted operating results are up 85%, order stock is up 26% and EUR 100 million cash flow in the last 12 months. Today’s Carbon Clash is the forum to create the next generation of solutions.’

Continuing on the theme of innovation, entrepreneurial leaders from two start-ups will be ‘roasted’ by Juuso Pajunen, CFO of Pöyry PLC. The first roast is with Santtu Hulkkonen, Co-founder & CEO of SOLVED, a world leading on-demand advisory and digital collaboration platform in the field of green economy. Solved was originally launched as a Cleantech Finland online service in 2012.

The second roast is with Tatu Leppänen, CEO of Tracegrow Oy who are a Finnish Cleantech company. Tracegrow purport to be the only company in the world that has developed an innovative technology to extract, purify and reuse the vital trace elements Zinc and Manganese from alkaline batteries and circulate them safely back to the nature as the world’s most ecological, clean Zinc and Manganese-based micronutrient products for farming.

Juuso comments, ‘We are expecting both roasts to be fast paced and insightful. It’s great to be working so closely with entrepreneurs like Santtu and Tatu who are pushing new boundaries and thinking outside-the-box – qualities that are fundamental to Pöyry’s DNA.’

The Carbon Clash is a celebration of Pöyry’s 60th anniversary, together with clients, alumni, partners and many of its talented intrapreneurs. In paying tribute to Dr. Jaakko Pöyry, the founder of the company, Henrik remarked, ‘I cannot think of a more fitting way to mark Pöyry’s 60th birthday than the Carbon Clash. If Jaakko could have been here today, then I know he would have personally enjoyed it and would have certainly had something inspiring to contribute.

Notes:

List of companies contributing to the Carbon Clash:

Fortum https://www.fortum.com/about-us
St1 https://www.st1.eu/
Sulapac https://www.sulapac.com/
Paptic https://paptic.com/
Solved https://solved.fi/about-us
Tracegrow http://www.tracegrow.com/en/welcome

Did you know

• Poyry was founded on 28th October 1958 by Dr Jaakko Pöyry? You can read more about Pöyry’s unique heritage here.
• Pöyry is pioneering the substitution of fossil based plastics with bio-based alternatives with a powerful methodology for mapping the solutions called the ‘Pöyry Plastics Substitution Book‘?’
• Pöyry is advising on the decarbonisation of Europe’s energy system?

Finland Consumer Attitudes Survey (September 2018)

Did you know that in a recent Finland consumer survey looking at attitudes towards carbon issues discovered that:

• three out of four Finns are worried about CO2 emissions
• less than half of Finns trust in humankinds ability to find a sustainable solution for CO2 emissions

You can read more about the survey findings (in Finnish) here.

#ClimateChange
#Bioeconomy
#PlasticsToBio
#Poyry60

About Pöyry

Pöyry is an international consulting and engineering company.  We serve clients across power generation, transmission & distribution, forest industry, biorefining & chemicals, mining & metals, infrastructure and water & environment. Together, we deliver smart solutions and work with the latest digital innovations. Pöyry’s net sales in 2017 were EUR 522 million. The company’s shares are quoted on Nasdaq Helsinki. Approximately 5500 experts. 40 countries. 115 offices.

SOURCE: Pöyry PLC

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