“Trust is a key ingredient in data sharing,” said Per Møller from Kalundborg Symbiosis, a leading industrial symbiosis from Denmark with more than 50 years of experience in sharing resources between companies.
Per Møller was invited to speak at the launch of the new Nordic Circular Accelerator – a program which aims to push forward more data sharing between companies as a tool to increase circularity.
Building trust is the first step in a data sharing collaboration, as Per Møller says:
“We need to build and prove trust before we can start sharing information with each other. All our partnerships are based on trust and business models.” He also highlights the importance of meeting physically to learn from each other: “I would like to see some more peer-to-peer interaction. We need to visit each other.”
Data is necessary to develop circular business models
Circular economy, and more specifically circular business models, has been a key focus area of Nordic Innovation since 2018. After working with hundreds of Nordic companies to develop circular tools and ecosystems, data and enabling data sharing has been identified as a key challenge for the circular transition.
Hanna Törmänen, Advisor at Nordic Innovation explains:
“What has been interesting in the workshops we have had with companies over the years is that data sharing is mentioned as a common challenge and that accessing information is necessary to develop circular business models.”
Together with Accenture, Nordic Innovation has developed the Nordic Circular Accelerator with the aim of demonstrating the benefits of data sharing for circularity. 10 Nordic collaborations have been selected to participate in the program, and over the next one year they will explore how gather and share data between the partners of their collaboration.
Accessing information is necessary to develop circular business models.
– Hanna Törmänen, Advisor at Nordic Innovation.
The need for a circularity industry standard
The program launch was followed by the first workshop with the purpose of finding common ground for the different partnerships.
One of the participants is a collaboration between the Danish companies Grundfoss and Danfoss. They have a long history of collaborating, but this is the first time they will work on a circular data sharing initiative. They decided to apply for the accelerator due to a common wish for an industry standard within circularity.
”Right now there is no standard for how to measure the impact of circularity. And also, there are no clear definitions of when a product is circular. Together, we would like to establish a set of game rules to push forward a common standard for the industry,” says Sofie Adamsen, Circular Business Senior Project Manager at Grundfoss.
“In the workshop today, we discussed the terminology and KPI´s. How do we measure circularity? That is the first milestone of our partnership. Then we need to socialize it with common partners, a supplier and a customer, to see if we have missed anything. Are these definitions recognizable for them as well? The third step in the process is to include policy makers and to push for an industry standard,” Sofie explains.
The second workshop takes place 23 May where the collaborations will learn about circular data sharing strategy, and value case.
By the end of the program a guide/playbook will be developed based on the outcomes.
Read more about the Nordic Circular Accelerator
Background
The Nordic Circular Accelerator is financed under the Circular Business Models program. The aim of the Circular Business Model program is to accelerate the transition to a circular economy in the Nordics and to develop the Nordics further as agile frontrunners within circular economy and circular business models.
