Finnish industries have been instrumental in driving the transition, as we believe that Finnish companies can provide the solutions required to tackle climate change. In 2019, Finland set the ambitious target of becoming carbon-neutral by 2035 and being the world’s first fossil-free welfare society. The 2035 target has remained as the guiding principle in Finland’s climate policy over governmental terms, paving the way for a unique joint effort between the public and private sectors to work together towards the common goal. In 2020. the different sectors, which had been active in this area for a longer period, created their own roadmaps to support the national target, and in autumn 2023, all of these sectors began updating their roadmaps.
There were many significant changes in the operating and investment environment between the years of 2019 and 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s war of aggression, and the subsequent energy crisis. Despite this, emissions reductions have advanced more rapidly than expected in several sectors due to the reduction of energy production emissions. However, in some sectors, weakened investment outlooks have discouraged some planned investments in climate-neutral solutions.
Business-driven approach, bottom-up
Finnish industries were given the task and the opportunity by the government to explicate how they would achieve carbon neutrality and what governmental support would be needed. A bottom-up approach enabled the sectors to come up with their own solutions at their own expense. These then also served as common ground for joint action.
What came out was a global first: a national low-carbon roadmap effort where the outcome was interactively produced by the sectors themselves, but in a compatible fashion. The linkages and trade-offs between the sectors were considered since the beginning.
The roadmaps have provided the government with an increased understanding about the sectoral needs, and emission reductions already achieved to meet the carbon neutrality target. These insights are used in national climate strategies and climate policy planning, which can be considered as one of the key achievements of the Finnish low-carbon roadmap work.
Integrated roadmaps with sector-specific details
The first group of core export industries, namely the chemical sector, the forest sector, the technology sector and the energy sector, ran a roadmap process where every sector did its own low- carbon plans in collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. Keeping in mind the special needs of every sector while highlighting the cross-industry links and advancing sector integration, the outcome was a unique collection of integrated roadmaps. The roadmaps were made to be summed up and to match each other in a larger puzzle.
The energy sector, for obvious reasons, had a special role to play in low-carbon roadmaps. That is why the other sectors interacted with the energy sector to ensure that the supply of energy matches the demand.
After and along with the export industries, ten other sectors did their roadmaps during 2019-2020. These were commerce, food, logistics and transport, agriculture, hospitality, construction, real estate owners and developers, sawmill, bioenergy and textile.
The roadmaps have since been updated, but as before, the roadmaps typically include a comprehensive overview of the current and target situation, a scenario analysis, means to achieve the target, requirements for the operational environment, and other inputs needed. Sectoral emissions are calculated according to Scope 1 and Scope 2 of the GHG Protocol, and some sectors have also taken steps to measure their Scope 3 emissions and carbon handprint.
Sharing learnings for inspiration
On this website we would like to introduce the Finnish low-carbon roadmaps to an international audience and share the insights gained from this work. Please find here the roadmap summaries for each sector and the most significant insights linked to national decarbonisation.
While these roadmaps were processed to be a consistent whole, they also reflect the diversity of Finnish economic activities and the creative solutions resulting from different perspectives. Meanwhile, continued work to implement and refine these plans goes on, for the best of the interests of not only Finland but the whole world.
