Green Industry Park drives sustainable green innovation investments into the greater Turku region

ExpandFibre Ecosystem member Green Industry Park Oy is a development company founded in June 2021 to develop the industrial businesses of bio and circular economies as well as the renewable energy sector. These sectors are the key enablers of the green transition for industrial companies in the greater Turku region (incl. the municipalities of Turku, Raisio and Naantali among many others). Despite its name, Green Industry Park is not yet an actual industrial park, but an ambitious development company with a vision to drive sustainable industrial development in the Turku Region.

The ExpandFibre team had an interesting chat with Green Industry Park’s Marketing Manager Krista Ahonen on the company’s origins and mission, future plans and why they wanted to join the growing Ecosystem led by Fortum and Metsä Group.

Circular economy and sustainability  at the core

After the Neste Corporation rearranged its oil refining business and closed down the Naantali refinery in 2020, Green Industry Park Oy was established in June 2021 to safeguard future industrial investments into the Turku region. Green Industry Park works in close collaboration with local municipalities, universities and regional developers attracting, supporting and creating future possibilities for new sustainable industrial investments, at the same time  promoting its portfolio of available industrial sites in the Turku business region. Green Industry Park is also highly interested in supporting start-up and growth companies to take the crucial growth steps into demonstration and full industrial scale operation.

Circular economy with a target to enhance the usage and value of bio-based and recycled raw materials in large-scale industrial processes are fundamentally important for Green Industry Park. With its actions, Green Industry Park also positively contributes to climate change mitigation and enhances biodiversity. They are scouting new application areas for under-utilised raw materials or industrial side streams and waste streams such as common reed, straw, wood chips and wood waste in forests.

The core team of Green Industry Park is made up of four highly skilled and experienced industrial professionals. The company is led by CEO Linda Fröberg-Niemi with other key team members being Timo Suutarla as the business development manager, Krista Ahonen as the marketing manager and Toivo Koskinen as the technical specialist.

Networking is elementary

Krista considers networking with the growing ExpandFibre Ecosystem fundamentally important for Green Industry Park.They  are already strongly connected with key stakeholders in the Turku business region  and have their office in the Smart Chemistry Park, where innovative companies such as CH-Bioforce (part of ExpandFibre Ecosystem) and CrisolteQ (now part of Fortum) also  started their journeys. The best-case scenario for Green Industry Park would be to find  innovative companies within the Ecosystem, who are actively looking to expand their industrial operations, and support them to invest into the Turku region. Krista notes that the industrial areas in the Turku region offer modern and dynamic operating environments, as well as logistically optimal  locations for international business.

Perfectly in line with the vision and mission of ExpandFibre, Krista summarises the bold mission of Green Industry Park, namely  ”to advance the creation of sustainable global industries for the benefit of the planet”.

More information: Green Industry Park website

Photo: Neste Oyj