The Finnish government has ambitions to make Finland a global leader in the circular economy by 2025. In 2016, Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund operating under the supervision of the Finnish Parliament, launched an initiative to build a circular economy road map for Finland. The road map was produced under the direction of Sitra in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, business life and other stakeholders.
The aim for implementing the circular economy roadmap is to strengthen Finland’s competitiveness and sustainable growth while creating new jobs by 2025. The road map outlines high-level targets for:
The economy – the circular economy will improve the competitiveness of Finnish organisations, increasing new innovations. Circular economy solutions will become an export advantage for Finland and reformed public procurement and new private and public sector financing instruments (such as impact investment cooperatives) will be used.
The environment – resource efficiency will improve significantly and material lifecycles will become more efficient, as non-renewable natural resources will be replaced but renewables and the country will move towards a carbon-neutral and waste-free society.
Society – a circular economy will create well-being by promoting the transfer to a service and ‘sharing’ economy, as consumers will adopt new consumption models.
The road map outlines five interlinked focus areas: 1) a sustainable food system, 2) forest-based loops, 3) technical loops, 4) transport and logistics, and 5) joint actions and outlines policy actions, key projects, and pilots for each focus area.
