High carbon materials and low carbon energy were in the focus of Koli Forum 2015

The fourth Koli Forum conference took place during September 9-11, 2015 in Koli, Finland. Participants to the conference included representatives from the various Northern bioeconomy sectors ranging from fisheries, food and agriculture, forestry as well as new bioeconomy products and services from North America, Europe, China and Japan.

Koli Forum 2015 attracted a wide range of exceptionally high level international speakers. The forum participants were engaged in lively discussions during the sessions addressing policy, business and scientific aspects common to all Northern bioeconomies. In subsequent workshops these ideas and concepts were further refined and processed into the Koli Theses.

The Koli Theses highlighted e.g., the urgent need for global transition to high carbon materials and low carbon energy, the need to advance biomass availability and sustainability, the need to carry out system-level assessments going beyond bioeconomy and to allow the circular economy to form the basis of the bioeconomy, etc. The Theses will be published in the near future at the koliforum.fi webpages.

Thanks to the genuine, open and positive spirit among all participants and the top level expertise that the audience and the speakers jointly offered, the forum was a great success! The Koli Forum Association wishes to express its warmest gratitude to all participants and sponsors of this event!

The next Koli Forum event is scheduled to take place June 6-8, 2017 in Helsinki in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of Finnish Independence. The conference is planned to be organized jointly with the World Resources Forum, the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra. Before the next conference in 2017, the Koli Forum Association will be organizing also other events, such as topical round table discussions and seminars.