Impact innovation in Europe, a sustainable competitiveness leading the way

How can Europe drive the development of a new sustainable competitiveness? What does the industry leading the green transition have to say? And could Sweden, possibly through Impact Innovation, show the way?

Insights

How can Europe strengthen its competitiveness? – 6 experts share their insights

The shift to a fossil-free future is unprecedented. Drawing on their experience and insights, six distinguished speakers share what they believe must happen to make this transition a reality.

They lead by example, showing that hope is not just a feeling, but a strategy for courage, action, and determination:

Sylvia Schwaag Serger – Chair of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and one of Europe’s sharpest thinkers, offers a new perspective on how Europe can remain strong, not through growth alone, but through sustainable competitiveness and innovation that creates value within planetary boundaries.

Ola Hansén – Director of Public Affairs at Stegra, shares the learnings of leading one of Europe’s most ambitious green industrial projects, the challenges of turning vision into results, and why true innovation lies not in technology itself, but in scale and financing models.

Jonas Nyvang – CEO and co-founder of Stilfold, explains how industrial origami challenges the logic of car manufacturing, moves a traditional industry toward sustainable competitiveness, and why the gap between early innovation and large-scale adoption remains a barrier.

Åsa Persson – Chair of the Swedish Climate Policy Council and strategic advisor at KTH, emphasizes that Europe must act now, launch major industrial and infrastructure projects and link climate goals to competitiveness targets.

Piret Tõnurist – Senior Program Innovation Lead at OECD’s Mission Action Lab, shares how mission-oriented system innovation can turn complexity into direction, enabling Europe to achieve sustainability and competitiveness.

Jenny Engström – Coordinator of Impact Innovation Accelerator at Vinnova, explains how Impact Innovation works bottom-up with actors across sectors to drive system innovation and breakthrough technologies toward a future within planetary boundaries.