Tampere University

06/06/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 06/06/2025 03:17

Researchers develop solutions for assessing the economic impact of sustainability

How can we promote green growth while maintaining competitiveness? According to Associate Professor Tuomas Korhonen from Tampere University, this transition is essential, but not easy to achieve.

"The green transition across value chains is progressing slowly, and there is an urgent need for new information, as the sale of environmentally friendly solutions remains challenging," he says.

Six months into the EBITDA project, the findings have already revealed that companies have difficulty determining the economic impact of environmental sustainability and that customers may not be willing to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products. In addition, political decisions and regulatory changes, along with their frequent revisions, do little to accelerate the adoption of sustainable practices. According to the researchers, the lack of reliable data and suitable calculation models within value chains is a particular challenge.

A multidisciplinary research group is studying this core question under the leadership of the Cost Management Center (CMC), which is part of the Industrial Engineering and Management Unit at Tampere University.

"Our goal is to develop tools and models with each consortium company on a case-by-case basis, while also creating a general model for everyone to use," says Postdoctoral Researcher Vesa Tiitola from Tampere University.

The first publication resulting from the EBITDA project addresses this key question and its underlying values, along with the current situation and practices that affect sustainability outcomes for both companies and society.

"The reality is that we must place increasing emphasis on balancing economic growth with sustainable development, and we need to be able to manage and analyse long-term value. In addition, the implementation of new sustainable solutions offered by Finnish export companies is still challenging. As researchers, we are actively working to find solutions to this issue," Tiitola says.

The three-year EBITDA research project is part of Valmet's Beyond Circularity research and development programme, which has been selected by Business Finland as a Leading Company project. The total budget for the EBITDA project is approximately €2.5 million, with Tampere University's research budget amounting to about €1.3 million. This funding is distributed across the Industrial Engineering and Management Unit, the Information and Knowledge Management Unit and the Aerosol Physics Laboratory at Tampere University. The key consortium partners include Valmet, Lassila & Tikanoja, Kemira, ImpactOS and Solita.

Read more about the project on CMC's website

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