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Our latest updates, thoughts, and events — as they roll out.
Finland is a cleantech country. Recent rankings by Cleantech Group and the WWF have placed the US, Israel, and Finland in the top 3 global leaders of cleantech. Many Finns hope that sector will become the country’s next big export after Nokia. So what makes Finnish cleantech so special? Demos Helsinki carries out…
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Finland is a problem-solving nation. The Finnish school-system gathers praise, a Finnish president-turned-conflict-solver received the Nobel Peace Prize some years back and now Finland is tackling climate change with a variety of interesting solutions. Finland recently gathered the most applications of all the 28 participating countries in the world’s largest…
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Finland’s first energy-efficiency Behaviour Change Hackathon took place in the capital earlier this week. Organised by Demos Helsinki and leading energy-efficiency firm Granlund, the event brought together coders, energy experts and behaviour scientists for a one-of-a-kind hackathon. The diverse group of participants was divided into five teams (with one coder, behavioural scientist and…
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While substantial efforts have been made to identify and address issues of environmental justice in urban areas, the question of how to consider and plan for the concerns of humans and other species remains a major challenge. This paper provides a conceptualisation of what ‘justice’ might mean from a multispecies justice (MSJ) perspective within the contexts of nature-based solutions (NBS) and urban sustainability planning. We offer a wider conceptualisation of representation, distribution and agency compared with dominant framings in NBS scholarship and provide exemplar cases on how to integrate these concepts in planning discourse. We critically discuss some of the challenges and opportunities of considering MSJ when confronted by established procedures and practices in NBS science and decision-making, focusing on (i) moving beyond existing standards for biodiversity conservation; (ii) embracing MSJ as a process and practice; and (iii) building the capacity of NBS planners to work with MSJ.
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The report provides insights into how the dominant ways of thinking about growth have taken shape and become entrenched: What has changed over the decades? And what might the future look like? Finnish discourse is also placed in the broader context of international societal and scientific debates, as well as global shifts in the operating environment.
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With the increasing culture of applying piloting as part of technology innovation, the need for understanding its societal implications is becoming more crucial. With the aim of understanding better the power relations, tensions and agencies pivotal to negotiating and embedding ethics across processes, we consider utilizing a framework of “design logics” to the data.
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Doomed to grow or ready to transform?
December 3, 2025
Economic growth used to be a cause that had effects, and the desired and expected effects were a matter of political and public debate until the 1990s recession. The meanings and expectations towards growth changed over time, and the idea of economic growth evolved within the debates and the very varied perspectives to growth. Our report “Doomed to Grow” calls for acknowledging growth’s historical recent origins and past pluralism in how economic growth has been discussed.
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20 years of trying
November 28, 2025
For 20 years, we have been fighting for a fair, sustainable, and joyful next era. These are the beginnings of our journey.
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Europe’s democratic resilience requires introspection, clear-sightedness and reimagination
September 16, 2025
The European Democracy Shield (EUDS) is being prepared to bolster the continent’s democratic resilience. If it isn’t to become one of innumerable democracy initiatives, EU institutions need to be clear-sighted about the causes and stakes of our present moment.
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