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Ruokapakkaamiseen kohdistuu erilaisista ympäristöhuolista kuten roskaantumisesta ja ilmastonmuutoksesta nouseva voimakas muutoksen tarve. Kasvavaa huomiota saavat myös erilaisten kemikaalien käyttö muoveissa, kiertotalous ja toisaalta kasvavat pakkausten käyttömäärät.Haittojen vähentämiseksi pakkaamiseen kohdistuu yhä tiukkenevia tavoitteita ja sääntelykeinoja. Pakkaamisella on toisaalta tärkeä rooli ruoan säilyttämisessä, turvallisuudessa, logistiikassa ja markkinoinnissa. Ruokapakkaamisen tuleekin olla kestävää niin ympäristön, liiketoiminnan kuin yhteiskunnan osalta. Package-Heroes-projektin järjestämässä ruokapakkaamisenmurrosareenassa etsittiin ratkaisuja kestävämmän ruokapakkaamisen haasteisiin.

Critical Making project has studied the social responsibility of making and explored together with makers new ways to foster gender inclusion, engagement of young people and openness of making. The project design is based on participatory research methods and a reflexive-interventionist research approach. We have engaged makers throughout the project to co-design the case interventions and co-create the project results. Our particular aim has been to engage people who are often underrepresented both in making and research collaboration, including women and caretakers, people from resource-scarce communities and makers from the global south. Following from that, the evaluation of the responsibility of our own project activities has been essential throughout the project implementation. Furthermore, one of the key aims of our interventionist-reflexive approach is to produce results that are both academically robust and meaningful for the maker communities and thus impactful. This evaluation report presents the results of the evaluation of Critical Making activities first from the point of view of responsibility (RRI) and then explores the impact pathways of project activities. Most of the frameworks developed to investigate responsibility in research and innovations (RRI) fail to grasp the particularities of grassroots innovations. To respect the principle of two-way learning between the Critical Making researchers and the maker community, we evaluated our research practices with the Critical Making reflection tool that is based on the sustainable making principles originally developed bottom up by the GIG maker community and further elaborated for a reflection tool during the Critical Making project. Although not initially designed for research purposes, it fits well for Critical Making as the project aims to concretely contribute to more responsible making. The tool introduces five dimensions of social responsibility to be evaluated: 1: Integrate local knowledge, 2: Make Things That Make Sense, 3: Share How you Make, 4: Build for Continuity and 5: Include Ecosystem Services. The evaluation indicates that Critical Making succeeded well in dimensions 1-3 which relate to engaging makers in co-designing and co-creation, responding to the needs of maker community to produce results that are relevant for makers and to share them in multiple formats through multiple channels in order to make them accessible for the community of makers. We also managed to engage often underrepresented and even marginalised groups such as people living in refugee camps or women from the communitiesof global south into collaboration and offer them support to elaborate bottom up their own projects, while at the same time gaining valuable insights for research. This was due to systematically applied co-design, co-budgeting and co-creation approaches in all the case actions as well as in the elaboration of the conceptual Critical Making Responsibility Framework from theoretical tool to an online game tailored for makers. The project also made attempts to build for continuity (Dimension 3) by acting with existing maker networks such as GIG and Wikifactory which continue to use and share the project outcomes after the end of the project. With regards to including ecosystems, the project performance was not as strong as with the dimensions of social responsibility despite several measures to support environmental sustainability, including support for the projects aiming to solve the problems caused by resource scarcity or environmental pollution for example. The impact pathways of Critical Making were evaluated with regards to the six impact goals that were specified by the consortium after the first phase of the project. These were: To support the critical making community creation, To promote inclusiveness in making, To promote critical making education, To promote openness in making, and Raising awareness of critical making. Similarly, to the responsibility evaluation results, our impact evaluation indicates that Critical Making has succeeded to run impactful activities and produce results which have been relevant and well received in the maker community due to the systematic co-design and co-creation approach. For example, we have managed to promote the awareness of critical making and diversity of voices heard within the making community with inspirational stories and active participation in different forums of discussion. Furthermore, we have provided concrete guidelines for inclusive making, critical making education, openness in making and responsibility evaluation. Our evaluation also shows that our case actions have contributed to upskilling among the people engaged in WP3 interventions and mentoring programme and that way had an empowering impact, both in terms of livelihood and agency within the community. In addition, practical impacts, the academic results of the project have received good response. For example, a paper presenting the Critical Making Responsibility Framework in the FAB17 conference in 2022 won the best paper award. Due to the short project period of 2,5 years, the last research articles on the openness and community engagement dimensions of RRI are still in process during the writing of this evaluation report. The results of the project provide an excellent basis to continue contributing with these results to the academic RRI discussions.

Bottom-up initiatives from maker networks across the globe, such as the first aid response during the outbreak of the Coronavirus, are currently showing how responsible innovation is happening outside the constraints of profit- driven large industries. We are witnessing the development of alternatives to DIY and making as a hobby. In this process, critical, socially responsible making and a professionalization of the maker-driven open hardware movement resembles how open source software became a widespread alternative to proprietary software. However, the positive societal, economic, and environmental impacts of the maker movement are still researched. The Critical Making project aims to gain scientific insights into the potentials of the maker movement for critical, socially responsible making in a participatory way. With both an academic and a practice-oriented audience in mind the project develops the Critical Making Responsibility Framework and a corresponding practical toolset to help reflect on core principles of critical making, such as social responsibility, sustainability, openness, inclusiveness. In this paper we present the emergence of the Critical Making Responsibility Framework and its current state. Also, we reflect on the experiences of makers having contributed to the development of the reflective toolset and discuss some of the challenges encountered along the way.

The term “critical making” has brought the principle of making (or, to briefly summarize, the extension of DIY culture through technology) closer to the framework of responsible research and innovation (RRI) not only in academia and design, but also in grassroots innovation movements (GIM). Such responsible innovation approaches reveal themselves in the maker culture’s commitment to openness, reflexivity, and its collaborative innovation processes. However, a framework that allows researchers to examine RRI principles in GIM has not yet been developed, and transdisciplinary scientific insights are necessary to better understand the processes of maker communities. Whether makers and maker communities follow the principles of RRI in other aspects, has also not been studied so far. These are thus the main goals of this project. The aim of this report is to support the endeavor outlined above by situating the term critical making in relevant scientific disciplines, summarizing the state-of-the-art of critical making and understand the opportunities that lie within grounding critical making in grassroots innovation processes for the Critical Making Consortium. As the Consortium aims to work with the grassroots innovators who “make critically”, the report also aims to identify participatory methods that will allow academic and non-academic co-researchers to collaboratively explore and improve responsible research and innovation (RRI) processes within those grassroots innovation practices.

Kiertotalouden edistäminen on 2010-luvun lopulla nostettu Suomessa keskeiseksi politiikkatavoitteeksi. Materiaalivirtojen sulkeutumista yleisellä tasolla kuvaavat kiertotalousmallit eivät kuitenkaan tarjoa selkeitä ohjenuoria siihen, millä tavoin ja kenen toimesta kiertotaloussiirtymä tapahtuu. Me kysymme tässä artikkelissa, mitä kiertotalouspilottien tutkimuksella voi oppia kiertotalouden edistämiseen liittyvistä laajemmista yhteiskunnallisista jännitteistä. Analyysimme kohteena on yhden kiertotalouden pioneeriyrityksen kamppailu lannan muuntamiseksi sikatalouden tuottamasta haitallisesta ylijäämästä hyödyntämiskelpoiseksi ravinnetuotteeksi ja energiantuotannon raaka-aineeksi. Tutkimme, millaisiin aineellisiin järjestyksiin toimijat törmäävät etsiessään ratkaisuja kiertotalouden peruskysymykseen, ylijäämäisten materiaalien muuntamiseen resurssiksi. Tarkastelemme kokeiltuja kiertotalousratkaisuja metabolisia suhteita uudelleen järjestelevinä teknologioina, jotka ovat poliittisia siinä mielessä, että ne pyrkivät avaamaan uusia tulevaisuuspolkuja intensiiviselle eläintuotannolle. Samalla ne törmäävät erilaisiin olemassa olevaa yhteiskunnallista järjestystä ylläpitäviin hallinnan teknologioihin ja kategorisointeihin, kuten ympäristötukijärjestelmään. Näiden törmäysten kautta paljastuu sellaisia kiertotaloussiirtymään liittyviä yhteiskunnallisia jännitteitä, jotka eivät artikuloidu poliittisilla areenoilla määrittelykamppailuina tai konflikteina. Väitämme, että konkreettisten kiertotalouspyrkimysten analyysi nostaa esille sen intressien, solidaarisuuksien ja historiallisten polkuriippuvuuksien kirjon, joka yleisen tason poliittisissa kiertotalousohjelmissa peittyy markkinointipuheen taakse., Circular economy has become one of the key targets of environmental policy in Finland within the recent years. The models of circular economy introduce a transition from take-make -dispose economy to closed material loops but do not provide clear guidelines of how the transition is supposed to be made. In this article, we ask what we can learn óf the broader societal tensions related to circular economy from individual pilots. We focus on the struggle of one pioneering company in Finland to turn the manure surplus of intensive pig farming into a resource for fertiliser and energy production. We investigate the novel circular economy solutions as political technologies which rearrange the existing metabolic relations thus opening up new pathways for intensive animal production. Simultaneoyusly, they also clash with various technologies of governance stabilising the existing status quo. These clashes manifest the underlying tensions of circular economy transition which do not articulate as open conflicts in public arenas. We claim, that to understand the multiplicity of potentially contested interests, solidarities and path dependencies included in the circular economy policies and actions, there is a need to carefully investigate the sociomaterial barriers and enablers that concrete circular economy projects encounter.

As atop-level national policy agenda, the Experimental Finland initiative (2015-2019) opens up an opportunity to investigate the politics of the nationally promoted experimental turn. We examine how the state launched agovernmental-level project aiming for the whole nation to become experimental. The Experimental Finland initiative was Prime Minister Juha Sipilä’s governmental Spearhead Programmes 2015-2019. This paper explores the underlying politics revealed by the implementation of Experimental Finland by asking:1) what kind of evidence concerning the barriers and obstacles of experimental culture was included and excluded in the national evaluation of the Experimental Finland programme, and2) how did the understanding of those barriers differ when compared to local level experiments? We argue that as experiments are expected to facilitate learning, they instead cause ambiguities in the organizational routines and imbalances in the existing power relations between different actors and actor groups. publishedVersion

Tämä strategisen tutkimuksen neuvoston rahoittaman Kestävän kasvun avaimet (GROWTH) -ohjelman julkaisu tuottaa tutkimukseen perustuvia näkökulmia ja ratkaisun avaimia päätöksentekijöiden hyödynnettäväksi tukemaan oikeudenmukaista siirtymää kohti kestävää ja hyvinvoivaa yhteiskuntaa. Nämä ratkaisun avaimet korostavat uudentyyppistä arvonluontia, korkeatasoista koulutusta sekä sukupolvien välisen oikeudenmukaisuuden toteutumista kestävyysmurroksessa.

Tulosperusteiset rahoitussopimukset ovat rantautuneet Suomeen uutena politiikkainstrumenttina, jonka keskiössä on taloudellisen tuottavuuden ja yhteiskunnallisen tai ekologisen vaikuttavuuden yhtäaikainen tavoittelu. Sopimuksia on toistaiseksi hyödynnetty niin Suomessa kuin globaalistikin lähinnä sosiaalisten ongelmien ratkaisemisen parissa, mutta viime aikoina ajattelumallia on pyritty soveltamaan myös ympäristöpolitiikassa. Tästä yksi esimerkki on vuodesta 2017 lähtien Lounais-Suomeen suunniteltu Ravinne-EIB (environmental impact bond). Tarkastelemme tässä artikkelissa, miten asiantuntijat, jotka osallistuivat Ravinne-EIB:in suunnittelutyöhön, kehystivät EIB:iä suhteessa siihen, miten se kontribuoisi ravinnekuormien aiheuttaman Itämeren rehevöitymisen ympäristöongelman ratkaisemiseen. Tunnistamme toteuttamiemme asiantuntijahaastattelujen perusteella kolme toistensa kanssa risteävää kehystä, joiden kautta EIB piirtyy eri tavoin sen havitteleman sosioteknisen muutoksen strategiansa kannalta: vaikuttavuusinvestoimisen soveltamisen kehys, ympäristötukipolitiikan haastamisen kehys ja kokeilukulttuurin jatkamisen kehys. Analysoimalla näiden kehyksien jäsentymistä suhteessa toisiinsa osallistumme keskusteluihin koskien sitä, miten politiikkainstrumentit kuten EIB:it voivat toimia osana transformatiivista politiikkaa., Impact bonds have recently been introduced as a policy instrument that is centered around pursuing economic productivity and social or environmental impacts simultaneously. So far, they have been carried out both in Finland and globally to solve social problems, but recently the model has also been experimented with within environmental policy. One example of this has been the Nutrient-EIB (environmental impact bond), which has been in preparation since 2017 to be implemented in Southwest Finland. In this article, we study how the experts who participated in planning the Nutrient-EIB framed the EIB in relation to how it would contribute to solving the environmental problem of nutrient loads causing eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. On the basis of expert interviews, we identify three frames, through which the EIB was seen in different ways according to the sociotechnical change it aims to achieve: the frame of applying the impact investing logic, the frame of challenging agri-environmental aid and the frame of extending experimentation culture. By analyzing how these frames relate to each other, we contribute to the discussions concerning how policy instruments such as EIBs may contribute to transformative policy.

This article explores the multiple meanings of the concept of openness in the global maker movement. Openness is viewed as one of the key principles of the maker movement. As the global maker movement is a bricolage of diverse and situated practices and traditions, there are also many different interpretations and ways of practicing openness. We have explored this diversity with an integrative literature review, relying on the Web of Science™ database. We identified three interrelated but also, in part, mutually contested approaches to openness. Firstly, openness often refers to applying open hardware. Secondly, it is in many cases related to the inclusion and empowerment of various groups in making. Thirdly, openness appears to be seen as a means to pursue economic growth through increasing innovation activity and entrepreneurship. Our results also highlight the substantial barriers encountered by makers while aiming to open up their practices. These barriers include: value conflicts in which openness is overridden by other important values; exclusion of lower income groups from making due to a lack of resources; and difficulties in maintaining long-term activities. The different meanings of openness together with the barriers create tensions within the maker movement while implementing openness. We propose that engaging in a reflexive futures dialogue on the consequences of these tensions can enhance the maker movement to become more open, inclusive and resilient.

Although there is the starting of a recognition of the potential importance of multi-system interaction for sustainability transitions, there is not yet much clarity of how this takes place. In this paper we look at multi-system interactions in an ongoing transition which is following a de-alignment realignment, path after sudden heavy pressure from regulators delegitimizing the use of plastics in food packaging. Drawing on an analysis of data within this transition towards more sustainable food packaging, involving 20 interviews and hundred documents, we specifically look at how incumbents of a focal system may create demand or pressure to innovate in other systems. We show how the food system actors take actions to stimulate innovations in materials and packaging solutions by the material system actors and the packaging system actors. We recognize five different types of actions: (1) signaling, (2) supply-demand, (3) providing innovation receptivity, (4) driving co-innovation, and (5) system integration. We discuss how these actions by the focal system creates new dynamics and supports niche innovation in the upstream systems.

The global food system is facing unprecedented challenges. Population growth, climate change, biodiversity loss and unsustainable food production methods are issues that need to be addressed through food research and innovation. Finland has the opportunity to take a pioneering role in the transition towards a healthy and sustainable global food system, and at the same time, benefit from the economic growth opportunities that will emerge during the changes. The future will be based on systematic research, genuine collaboration and new innovations. Finland’s food research missions for 2035: 1. Healthy, safe, and sustainable diets are viable for all in Finland.2. Food and feed production in Finland is sustainable, competitive, and resilient.3. Resource efficiency and zero waste are key determinants in the Finnish food system.4. Finland is a forerunner and leading testbed for sustainable food system research and innovations.The strategic plans include pathways and implementation steps for changes towards a healthy and sustainable food system, which leads to the well-being of society, economic growth, and offers growth opportunities for Finnish food producers and the food industry that are based on scientific knowledge and food innovations. Strategy highlights the need to better combine the expertise of different scientific disciplines and to intensify cooperation between research organisations. Communication between the public administration and the research community also needs to be improved.

Globaali ruokajärjestelmä on ennennäkemättömien haasteiden edessä. Väestönkasvu, ilmastonmuutos, luonnon monimuotoisuuden köyhtyminen ja kestämättömät ruoantuotannon menetelmät ovat asioita, joihin elintarviketutkimuksen ja innovoinnin kautta on löydettävä ratkaisuja. Suomella on mahdollisuus ottaa edelläkävijän rooli siirtymisessä kohti terveellistä ja kestävää globaalia ruokajärjestelmää ja hyötyä samalla muutoksen tuomista talouden kasvumahdollisuuksista. Tulevaisuutta luodaan systemaattisen tutkimuksen, aidon yhteistyön ja uusien innovaatioiden avulla. Tutkimusorganisaatioiden yhteisellä elintarviketutkimusstrategialla määritellään monitieteisiä tutkimuskokonaisuuksia, jotka johtavat Suomessa kestävään ruokajärjestelmään vuoteen 2035 mennessä.Elintarviketutkimuksen missiot Suomelle vuodelle 2035: 1. Terveellistä, turvallista ja kestävää ruokaa kaikille Suomessa 2. Ruoan- ja rehuntuotanto Suomessa on kestävää, sopeutuvaa ja kilpailukykyistä 3. Ruokajärjestelmä on resurssitehokas ja jätteetön 4. Suomi on kestävään ruokajärjestelmään tähtäävän tutkimuksen ja innovaatioiden sekä uusien toimintatapojen edelläkävijä ja pilotoija. Strategia nostaa esiin Suomen painopisteitä ja toimenpiteitä kohti ruokajärjestelmää, joka lisää yhteiskunnan hyvinvointia, tukee talouskasvua ja tarjoaa suomalaisille ruoan tuottajille ja elintarviketeollisuudelle tieteelliseen tietoon ja elintarvikeinnovaatioihin perustuvia kasvumahdollisuuksia. Strategia korostaa, että eri tieteenalojen asiantuntemusta on osattava yhdistää nykyistä paremmin ja tiivistettävä tutkimusorganisaatioiden yhteistyötä. Myös julkishallinnon ja tutkimusyhteisön välistä viestintää on parannettava.

Jarno Valkonen, Olli Pyyhtinen, Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen, Veera Kinnunen & Heikki Huilaja: Tervetuloa jäteyhteiskuntaan. Aineellisen ylijäämän kanssa eläminen. Tampere: Vastapaino, 2019, s. 157. ISBN 978-951-768-773-7

Kiertotalous on toimintatapa, jolla tähdätään kestävän kehityksen mukaiseen kasvuun. Materiaalikierrot ovat kiertotalouden keskiössä, sillä niihin liittyy merkittäviä ympäristövaikutuksia ja toisaalta merkittävää liiketoimintaa eri sektoreilla. Vuonna 2018 materiaalikierroissa toimi yli 500 yritystä, ja kiertotaloudesta liikevaihtoa arvioidaan muodostuneen noin 11 mrd € (5 % bkt:sta). Kiertotalouden yritykset perustavat liiketoimintansa pääosin kierrätyksen tai resurssitehokkuuden liiketoimintamalleille. Vain muutama prosentti kiertotalouden liikevaihdosta kertyi tuote palveluna-konsepteista tai jakamisalusta-liiketoiminnasta. Materiaalikiertotalouden ekosysteemit voidaan jakaa kolmeen tyyppiekosysteemiin: alueellisista vahvuuksista ponnistavat ekosysteemit, teollisuuden vahvojen vetureiden ekosysteemit, sekä kiertotalousvisioon nojaavat ekosysteemit. Eri tyyppisillä ekosysteemeillä on oma tärkeä roolinsa kiertotalouden toteutuksessa. Kiertotalouden materiaalikiertoihin liittyvä liiketoiminta on arvion mukaan kaksinkertaistettavissa vuoteen 2030 mennessä. Kasvu vaatii kuitenkin samaan suuntaan ohjaavia yhtäaikaisia politiikkatoimia, kuten sääntely, investointituet ja T&K&I kannusteet. Seuraavaksi tulisi arvioida valittujen kiertotaloustoimien yhteinen vaikuttavuus eri toimialoilla suhteessa hiilineutraalisuustavoitteisiin ja kiertotalouden toteutumiseen.

Non

The circular economy (CE) has recently gained increasing attention as an approach to enhance the transition to a more sustainable economy. The concept has its roots in the theoretical traditions of ecological economics and industrial economy emphasizing the need to shift from the ‘take-make-dispose’ linear economic model towards circular one, in which a waste or side stream of one process functions as a resource in another one. Despite of decades of academic research, the concept of circular economy has entered only recently into European policy agenda.The current policy landscape of circular economy is complex and ranges from the governance of production, consumption, waste management, environmental protection, resource efficiency, green public procurement to innovation, among others. The need of transformative policies, which simultaneously constrain unsustainable activities and encourage environmentally sound activities to stimulate systemic transitions is well recognized In sustainability transitions literature. The current research on policy mixes for sustainability transitions has strong focus on low carbon transitions and resource efficiency, while a limited number of studies has been made on policy mixes in circular economy.Our presentation will shed new light on the complexity of developing policy tools for boosting transition towards circular economy. We do this by exploring how emerging Finnish circular economy ecosystem on textile recycling can be boosted through various policy tools. Today, only a fraction of all textiles is recycled or reused. The global demand for textile products is increasing due population growth and economic development. Significant environmental and resource challenges are foreseen, as the majority of textile fibres are produced either from petrochemicals or from cotton, which is associated with water depletion and toxic pollution due to intensive use of water and pesticides during the cultivation. The transition of the textile sector towards a circular economy requires fundamental changes to how the industry operates. Thus, textile recycling ecosystems are globally interesting cases as they aim at changing the current linear mode of operation for producing, distributing, and using textiles.To study the transformative role of policy design, we focus on following research questions (RQ);RQ 1. What are the main factors helping and hampering the development of a textile recycling ecosystem?RQ 2. What kind of policy tools could enable the formation and growth of the ecosystem?RQ 3. How policy mixes can be (re)-designed to overcome the barriers and to foster the transition towards CE?To answer the research questions we will 1) map the key barriers and failures hampering the formation and development of the textile recycling ecosystem, 2) evaluate the existing policy instruments and mixes, and 3) identify and design potential policy mixes in collaboration ecosystem actors. We will use a mixed method approach, which combines policy mix framework, and technological innovation system (TIS) functions analysis, and apply them to the field of circular economy and sustainability transitions. The primary data consists of semi-structured interviews of the key ecosystem actors, and academic and grey literature on existing policies and policy mixes.As policy tools are an integral part of circular economy transition and may induce various unanticipated impacts, there is an urgent need to increase the reflexivity of policy development in this issue area. Based on our empirical findings, we will contribute to the scientific discussion of orchestrating circular economy transition.

Due to climate change, there is a need to phase out fossil-fuel based energy use for heating, cooling and lighting buildings. Thus, a transition to nearly zero energy buildings is necessary. This requires socio-technical change in both building and energy systems - implying significant changes not only in technology but also in policies, institutions, markets, practices and culture surrounding the technology. Buildings offer many opportunities for decarbonisation, while the optimal energy performance improvement and the potential for reduction differs case and region specifically. This publication summarises research in an Academy of Finland funded project, Change in Business Ecosystems for Local Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency - Better Energy Services for Consumers (USE), conducted during 2015-2018. It addresses the challenge of further improving the energy efficiency of the Finnish building stock by focusing specifically on energy service companies offering integrated services for buildings, on the emerging business ecosystems and regional innovation ecosystems for energy services, and on the building energy efficiency policy mix from the perspective of transition. The report shows that, in Finland, the transition towards nearly zero energy buildings has started, but the building sector is still far from being nearly zero energy. Energy service companies have the potential to reconfigure the existing energy and building systems and drive the transition. Energy and building sectors are supply-centric, so changing the mind-sets of energy and construction industry actors towards service provision and consumption is vital. At societal level, disinterest in energy efficiency is slowing down transition. Ecosystems of actors providing integrated building energy services are emerging around specific business models and in various regions. At the regional level, a city can orchestrate a process to create an innovation ecosystem by gathering the relevant actors and creating a common vision towards a nearly zero energy building system. Many supportive policies are in place, and policy development has been largely consistent and coherent in the intermediate term. However, more attention needs to be paid to the comprehensiveness of the policy mix to reach the goal of nearly zero energy, and especially to implementation to make sure it is coherent with the policy goals.

Due to climate change, there is a need to phase out fossil-fuel based energy use for heating, cooling and lighting buildings. Thus, a transition to nearly zero energy buildings is necessary. This requires socio-technical change in both building and energy systems - implying significant changes not only in technology but also in policies, institutions, markets, practices and culture surrounding the technology. Buildings offer many opportunities for decarbonisation, while the optimal energy performance improvement and the potential for reduction differs case and region specifically. This publication summarises research in an Academy of Finland funded project, Change in Business Ecosystems for Local Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency - Better Energy Services for Consumers (USE), conducted during 2015-2018. It addresses the challenge of further improving the energy efficiency of the Finnish building stock by focusing specifically on energy service companies offering integrated services for buildings, on the emerging business ecosystems and regional innovation ecosystems for energy services, and on the building energy efficiency policy mix from the perspective of transition. The report shows that, in Finland, the transition towards nearly zero energy buildings has started, but the building sector is still far from being nearly zero energy. Energy service companies have the potential to reconfigure the existing energy and building systems and drive the transition. Energy and building sectors are supply-centric, so changing the mind-sets of energy and construction industry actors towards service provision and consumption is vital. At societal level, disinterest in energy efficiency is slowing down transition. Ecosystems of actors providing integrated building energy services are emerging around specific business models and in various regions. At the regional level, a city can orchestrate a process to create an innovation ecosystem by gathering the relevant actors and creating a common vision towards a nearly zero energy building system. Many supportive policies are in place, and policy development has been largely consistent and coherent in the intermediate term. However, more attention needs to be paid to the comprehensiveness of the policy mix to reach the goal of nearly zero energy, and especially to implementation to make sure it is coherent with the policy goals.