Sustainability through Information Flows

Finland has committed to various international treaties concerning climate, environmental, and social issues. The SusFlow project will - in part - answer this need and beyond. The project aims to help shape the international shipbuilding market to become more open, more sustainable, and more environmentally friendly, thus giving the Finnish shipbuilding a competitive edge.

The SusFlow project applies a multidisciplinary approach for shared solutions within a network of enterprises representing a multitude of competence areas with an LCA-driven focus. The project promotes sustainability assessments based on real data, a seamless flow of information, and a possibility to discover innovations. This will benefit the incorporation of sustainability as an everyday practice within the shipbuilding ecosystem. The assessments combined with increasing our company partners' expertise in value chain sustainability measurement and data generation will increase overall sustainability. The models by which these processes can be implemented are investigated and utilized in communicating network sustainability to various interest groups, and generalized to promote Finnish marine industry.

The approach creates a multitude of business potential varying from clear savings, enhanced efficiency and innovation potential, to social values, environmental values, and raw marketing value. The aim is to have an effect and create demand on customer standards and purchasing behavior through a market shaping ideology, thus increasing sustainability requirements in the market. The main beneficiaries of the results are the shipyard, shipbuilding network, and shipping companies. The solutions can be scaled, formalized, and incorporated to give the Finnish marine industry a competitive advantage in the cruise ship market.