Green Net Finland ClusterXChange visits to Finland were implemented in two separate calls on 30th May - 1st June 2023 and on 13th - 15th September 2023. GNF enjoyed co-hosting the green tech entrepreneurs and business experts during the inspiring and intensive 3-day programmes. During the first visit the Visiting Organisations (VO) got a glimpse of the Finnish green energy sector, regional environmental and climate strategy, circular economy and business development branches.

The total number of participating VOs was 10. Visitors came from four greentech clusters in Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden and Poland. The organizations were: Griddiagnoze, LightMirror UAB, Codesis, Pärnu Innovation Center Kobar, RecoFibre, Tallinn Creative Incubator, WAJM SP, XRental. During the first ClusterXChange visit organizations visited Green Net Finland, Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council, where we heard interesting presentations by Regional Council, CLIC Innovation and Haaga-Helia University of Applied Science about the Helsinki-Uusimaa Circular Valley also and Vantaa Energy plant was visited.
Participation in the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF2023) conference at Helsinki was also in the program. In addition to the interesting presentations the conference also gave many chances for our VO:s to get connected internationally.

During the second CXC visit, Fusebox and 4IT participated as VO:s. They got to know Metropolia University of Applied Sciences as well as Green Net Finland office and the Habitare expo at the Helsinki Expo Center. The focus of the visit at Metropolia was the smart building laboratory. Topics of the Habitare show included circular economy solutions and sustainability and circular economy lectures, together with Finnish interior design. Visit to the CLIC Innovation presented their business development and industry projects and activities related to bioeconomy, circular economy and synergy systems, the sectors that mostly interested the visitors. Visiting organizations were invited to take part in the initiative of CLIC Innovation and the guests also presented their company solutions.

The visitors were also hosted by Forum Virium, an Innovation company owned by the City of Helsinki. The visitors learned about the recent development projects in the energy and mobility sectors which serve the needs of the City of Helsinki. During the meeting, a discussion about the possible joint projects was raised. Collaboration can continue in the future through Green Net Finland. In the program there was also a visit to Espoo City’s Kera - a Sustainable Future District project, to where the visitors rushed on the local train. At Kera, the new circular construction and development area utilizes considerable material reuse from demolished buildings and has ambitious plans for re-development of Kera in the City of Espoo. One whole day of the visit was dedicated to the Nordic Climate Forum for Construction 2023 organized at the premises of the Finnish Ministry of Environment. All in all, the visitors concluded to the organisers that they were pleased with the programme and said that it was worth their dedicated time in Helsinki.
GreenTech is the European network that unites five Bronze-awarded clusters from Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Finland and Poland. More than 100 SMEs have already kickstarted their greentech solutions in local markets and they are going to scale their business to new innovation systems! The project GreenTech 2.0 empowers green tech clusters to support SMEs in exploiting growth opportunities, service innovation, resource-efficient solutions, market traction, finding investments and internationalization. It is accompanied by strategic partnering between clusters and specialized eco-systems and cities resulting in a new, joint GreenTech Services 2.0 portfolio for participating clusters, including the implementation of the ClusterXchange Programme.

Green Net Finland
Green Net Finland is a cleantech cluster that brings together the expertise and resources of Finnish cleantech companies, scientific and educational institutions and public authorities. Green Net Finland is a registered Bronze label cluster at the European Cluster Collaboration platform.

DISCLAIMER
The content of this Green Tech 2.0 Deliverable 3.2 represents the views of the authors only and is their sole responsibility it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA) or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.