Here we introduce the OXIPRO sustainability team at VTT (from left to right in the photo): Katri Behm, Mona Arnold and Eveliina Hylkilä. Mona is the Work Package Leader for WP6 Sustainability, and is therefore a member of the OXIPRO management and scientific committees; Katri is our senior researcher for the environmental impact assessments; and Eveliina is our junior researcher working alongside Katri.
The group are all colleagues in VTT’s Sustainable Business Team, which forms part of the Business Area for Foresight and Data economy.
- The Sustainable Businesses Team helps companies to identify, valuate and capture growth opportunities from sustainable and circular economy with proven research excellence.
- The Business Area utilises novel foresight methods to support strategic decision-making, and to reveal essentials of critical phenomena, like data, sustainability and responsibility in this area.
- Foresight and Data economy aims to concretise future opportunities and create actionable strategies for future-proof businesses and societies.
Overall, we support companies and organisations with reliable and science-based insights for their strategic decision making in order to secure the competitiveness
We work with Environmental Social Governance (ESG)/sustainability impact assessments, such as Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) assessments and combining social responsibility perspectives with LCA; materiality assessments; roadmaps; strategies; business models; and governance (including policies, regulatory and voluntary instruments). We also carry out assessments in public research projects as well as for companies producing information for reporting according to different sustainability reporting frameworks (e.g. Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and EU Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS)). In these evaluations, we produce information regarding, for example, various environmental indicators such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and water use. We perform these evaluations at both product and organizational levels. In addition, the team has expertise in the various processes and possibilities of the circular economy from both a technical and a business perspective.
In OXIPRO, VTT’s main contribution focuses on the sustainability of the new innovations. The environmental impacts of new enzymes in the four innovation cases (liquid detergents, textiles, sunscreens and nutraceuticals) will be evaluated by applying the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. This will cover the evaluation of global warming potential (i.e. impacts on climate change) and other relevant environmental impact categories, such as the use of fossil resources.
About VTT
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd is a Finnish, fully state-owned, limited liability, not-for-profit company. The steering of the company falls within the remit of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. The special duty of VTT as an independent and impartial research centre is to promote the wide-ranging utilisation and commercialisation of research and technology in commerce and society.
VTT is one of Europe’s leading research institutions. With around 2000 people, it covers a wide area of technology and business expertise and advances the utilisation and commercialisation of research and technology in commerce and society. Through scientific and technological means, we turn large global challenges into sustainable growth for businesses and society.