LAB Innovations Annual Review 2021: Business Design And Thick Value

More sustainable consumption through cooperation and pilot experiments

Read publication here: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-827-377-9

The Commercialisation of Innovations is one of the four strategic focus areas of the research, development and innovation (RDI) activities of the LAB University of Applied Sciences. The aim of this review is to communicate the actions and results of ongoing and recently completed RDI projects in the strategic focus area as well as convey lessons learnt from and experiences yielded by the experiments carried out as part of these projects.

Abstract

Despite global warming and species extinction, economic and environmental measures are of-ten contrasted. Luckily, many such practices that combine both of those aspects already exist. This article focuses on LAB projects, in which residents and consumers play an important role.

Shift from linear to circular economy and from owner to user

With the fast development of technology and digitalisation,  the economic globalisation has moved forward rapidly. This development has had many notable positive effects over the years, but it has also enabled the transition from a scarce economy to an overflowing economy,  in which consumer products are getting continually cheaper and easier to purchase.  The disadvantages of accelerating production and consumption, and the concentration of wealth, can be seen all over the world. The Earth’s resilience is limited and is already heavily burdened by current consumer behaviour. Therefore, actions are needed. (Hellström & Porevuo 2020; Lindgren et al. 2019.) The road to better results is already known.  It has been counted that if raw materials are used smarter,  goods are reused longer, and recycling is organised better,  that could lead worldwide to a 20 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions.