Industrial challenges in sustainable manufacturing

Leading Lights brings together key stakeholders who are making a difference in furthering the green transition. This is the forum that showcases success cases from collaborations resulting from open innovation projects as well as opportunities for addressing pressing global challenges in manufacturing. Leading Lights 2024, was held at the experiential facilities of Tom Tits Experiment during Science Week in Södertälje.  The event brought together industry leaders, leading startups and leading voices to provide valuable insights to solve industry challenges in sustainability.

During the day, presentations from companies including Scania, Volvo Group, Alfa Laval, Norsk Hydro as well as ShiftLabs, European Digital Innovation Hub, gave insights into their resepctive sustainability challenges. A diverse group of ~ 70 great minds from more than 10 different countries worked together during a workshop based on these challenges.Meanwhile, ten innovative startups, scaleup and projects showcased their inspiring solutions, addressing the crucial challenges in the manufacturing sector. Additionally, the event included matchmaking, smart industry demos as well as experimental games centred around the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Tom Tits Experiments facilities.

Towards digitalisation

Policy Officer at the European Commission: European Digital Innovation Hubs, Jaakko Aarnio, was present to talk about the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs), Digital Decade and the Chips Act.

During his presentation, he highlighted the continuous efforts of the European Union to enable digital transformation in the industry and public sector through a knowledge management cycle, including testing before investing, funding investments, ecosystem networking, skills training, and fostering digitalisation through EDIHs.

Further, he mentioned that the European Union, the European Commission, and a Seal of Excellencies co-fund European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) to enhance connectivity and community balance through thematic working groups and free webinars. The Thematic working groups, such as manufacturing are facilitated voluntarily and have a leader, group moderator, or steering group.

What does the future look like?

CEO of EIT Manufacturing, Caroline Viarouge, gave a keynote speech to wrap up the workshop session titled “What does the future look like? Innovation, technology, and people”.

She talked about how 85% of consumers in Sweden prioritise companies focusing on sustainability and discussed Europe’s future manufacturing trend, highlighting its 2,000,000 enterprises, 82% of EU exports, and 32 million jobs in high-tech manufacturing.

Despite these strong manufacturing capabilities and innovation initiatives, challenges like the skills gap remain given unprecedented exponential advancements in modern-day technology:

Södertälje – Sweden’s sustainable production hub

Vice President and Head of Global Industrial Development at Scania, Lars-Henrik Jörnving, gave a speech presenting Scania and Södertälje as a sustainable production hub in Sweden.

He began his presentation by first acknowledging the words of Caroline Viarouge on the challenges and the necessity of a skilled workforce for the prosperity of European manufacturing.

Lars-Henrik Jörnving introduced Södertälje Science Park a national hub for sustainable production flows and research, focusing on collaborations with Academic Partners, AstraZeneca, and Scania for research and education. According to him, Scania currently employs over 17,000 people in Södertälje, which is home to skilled employees and world-class competence. In his words, “a strategic co-location for global competitiveness”. In line with this, he gave an introduction to Science Week.

Money Matters

Venture Capital company, Butterfly Ventures, participated in the Leading Lights event, contributing with a financial perspective on advancing sustainable manufacturing innovation. Anette Nordvall, Partner & Investor at Butterfly Ventures delivered a keynote titled “Money Matters: how to use funding to deep-tech ventures advantage”.

She presented Butterfly Ventures as a leading tech hardware-focused VC which currently invests in Finland, the Nordics, and the Baltics. Her main admonition to startups was to strive for manufacturing excellence and attractiveness by focusing on sustainable production, company footprint, and emissions. These are areas that VCs like Butterfly Ventures evaluate annually in their fund.