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The Nordic countries often pride themselves on their climate actions, yet the reality paints a contrasting picture: Nordic consumers live like we have 4.2 Earths at our disposal. While adopting solar panels, vegan diets, and choosing train travel are commendable, did you know your wardrobe can be a major environmental villain?  “Designed to become forever favourites” is an example of a slogan on Nordic clothing web shops, encouraging consumers to view their purchases as long-term additions to their wardrobes. However, these “cornerstones” are paradoxically expected to be updated quarterly, highlighting a disconnect between marketed sustainability and actual consumer practices. From a global perspective, the Nordic countries stand out when looking at how we consume textiles. In the last 20 years, there has been a notable increase in textile consumption, surpassing the global average. The average person in the Nordic region buys and wears an astonishing amount of clothing each year: between 26 and 48 garments per person. The average Swede buys 40 % more clothes now than in 2000 and throws away around 11 kilograms of textiles every year, with less than 1% being recycled. The lifespan of our clothes is getting shorter, and low-priced garments are discarded after being worn only a few times. Unsold and returned clothes are sometimes burnt or shipped to landfills in lower-income countries outside the EU. Textile production is a major contributor to global pollution, accounting for 10% of global carbon emissions. This surpasses the combined emissions from international flights and maritime shipping. It is clear that there is an urgent need for change, both within the industry and in our consumer behaviour. Gen Z’s Fashion Paradox: Striking a Balance Between Style and Sustainability However, there’s a glimmer of change among Generation Z, with a fondness for second-hand fashion and heightened environmental awareness. The…

Nordregio is a part of GRANULAR, a project that generates new datasets, tools and methods to understand the characteristics, dynamics and drivers of rural areas. The GRANULAR “Living Labs” bring together local actors from France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom to co-design, test and validate GRANULAR work. The aim is to support digital, economic, and ecological transitions in rural areas, understand and inform about rural diversity and empower them to engage in just, carbon-neutral, and inclusive transitions. In short: better knowledge for better rural policies. During the workshop held in Ede-Wageningen, Netherlands on June 19th and 20th, researchers and local actors discussed key factors, data gaps, and potential solutions. Strategies for climate neutrality and a Just Transition To achieve a just transition, strategies should combine adaptation and mitigation measures, addressing challenges such as social acceptability and ensuring a fair transition process. Rural areas can both contribute to and benefit from climate neutrality. There are substantial potentials in the residential, infrastructure, transport and renewable energy sectors, together with a circular bioeconomy. Rural Resilience In terms of rural resilience, participants identified social learning processes, institutional capacity, and economic diversity as crucial components. Policymakers need to consider the interconnectedness of the local economy, environment, and community, while also establishing clear and measurable ways to concretize rural resilience. Addressing Sustainable Food Systems The workshop also discussed sustainable food systems, emphasizing the importance of food security, self-reliance, and accessibility to high-quality food. Participants recognized regional variations in food production and self-supply, as well as the trade-offs involved in decision-making. Moving Forward with GRANULAR The workshop’s outcomes provide valuable insights for policymakers and researchers involved in the GRANULAR project. It highlights the need for comprehensive data, indicators, and tools to inform decision-making in these areas. The findings also contribute to the development…

Can research and AI-generated policies counter migration trends that tend to harm vulnerable regions? A new project kicks-off an ambitious attempt to find out. People are no longer bound to their birthplaces and are instead choosing to move to other parts of the world in search of better opportunities. In Europe, this has led to a phenomenon known as brain drain, where highly skilled workers leave their home regions in search of better jobs and quality of life. This has left behind areas of Europe that are struggling to maintain their population and attract new talent. PREMIUM_EU is a project that seeks to enlighten and find alternative ways to turn this imbalance around. Why study migration’s effect on remote regions? Migration is a contentious issue in many parts of Europe, and policies that are seen as too favorable to migrants often face opposition from local communities. Shifts in labour sectors, housing shortages, integration tensions. These are some of many concerns receiving countries have about migrant flows. On the other hand, many remote regions face the opposite reality. People are moving and no migrants are arriving to replace them. When highly skilled workers migrate out of a region this can have negative impacts on the economy and social fabric of the region. Loss of talent and expertise combined with an aging population leaves communities in crisis. PREMIUM_EU is built on the premise that spatial mobility, or the ability of people to move freely between different regions, can offer new opportunities to both sending and receiving regions. Europe’s population would shrink dramatically without migration. This project seeks to identify the positive effects of migration that are often overlooked. What is PREMIUM_EU? The lengthy acronym outlines the goal concisely: “Policy REcommendations to Maximise the beneficial Impact of Unexplored Mobilities in and beyond the…

The Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union hosted a seminar on the 23rd of March, focusing on skills for the green transition for a competitive Europe. Senior Research Fellow at Nordregio Timothy Heleniak was invited to present at the session. The event gathered 150 participants involved in various aspects of education, adult learning, life-long learning, and skills for the green transition from all over Europe. Mats Persson, the Swedish Minister of Education, opened the seminar and highlighted the changing and growing needs in the labour market to achieve Europe’s green transition. “The green transition can only succeed if the European Union has the qualified labour that is needed. Between 2015 and 2021, the labour shortage in sectors considered key for the green transition doubled. This year, The European Year of Skills aims to strengthen competencies and skills needed for the green transition.” Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, focused on the opportunities arising from the green transition. “The green transition could create up to 1 million additional jobs in the EU by 2030. But for that, the right policies need to be in place.” There is a skill gap within the EU, with around 800 000 trained workers needed for the battery section. There is also a demand for experts in renewable energy. “We need to act upon these skills shortages. Our ambitious target is that 60 per cent of adults should participate in training by 2030.” Senior Research Fellow at Nordregio Timothy Heleniak gave a presentation in a session titled ‘Supplying scarcely populated areas with competencies needed for sustainable growth and development’, based on his fieldwork last year in Norrbotten, Sweden, and the green transition there.

The SHERPA annual conference was organised in Montpellier, France, at the end of January and focused on co-creating rural futures. It is the last year of the project, and one challenge for the researchers is to capture and utilise the huge amount of knowledge and good suggestions produced at the local level. SHERPA (Sustainable Hub to Engage into Rural Policies with Actors) is a four-year project (2019-2023) with 17 partners funded by the Horizon 2020 programme. The unique thing about the SHERPA project is how it works with the local stakeholders, generates policy-relevant research together at the local level, and delivers information to the EU level. Nordregio is a partner in the SHERPA project and steers the work of several of these Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MAPs). The MAPs have identified local threats and challenges to living and working in ways that will enable transitions towards climate neutrality and opportunities that could be created and pursued. At the moment, Nordregio is working with MAPs in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Estonia, which are all in the process of preparing their position papers on how to empower rural areas in multi-level governance processes. Each MAP chooses an area of relevance for their region that highlights main issues and suggestions for solutions. Senior Research Fellow Leneisja Jungsberg and Research Fellow Hilma Salonen are part of the Nordregio SHERPA team. During the conference, Jungsberg and Salonen learnt that the MAPs had similar experiences of the most pressing rural issues now, despite huge geographic, political and social differences. “The SHERPA project is facing a challenge that all research projects and institutions can relate to. How to capture and utilise the huge amount of knowledge and good suggestions that we have produced at the local level? New, more systemic approaches would be needed to reach this aim and…

Why do people migrate to Europe? What could we learn from analysing migration drivers to predict future migration patterns? How do the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and economic challenges affect the migration patterns to Europe?  Last week, Nordregio hosted an online policy workshop on behalf of the Horizon 2020 project “Future Migration Scenarios for Europe”. Researchers from the FUME project presented the latest results from recently conducted studies on migration drivers and discussed the major implications on future migration policy development. Considering migration – future migrant’s perspective Karolina Sobczak-Szelc, a researcher at the Cracow University of Economics, presented a study that aims to understand the decision-making process related to internal and international migration. The interviews with potential migrants were conducted in Tunisia, Senegal, Iraq and Ukraine – countries representing various regions from which migrants usually come to Europe – Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe. Important to mention that the study was finalised before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The study results show that the motivation to migrate differs between generations. “The aspiration to migrate abroad is higher among youth who recently moved from home to a larger city. Meanwhile, the parent generation who have settled in the city a long time ago, often wish that their children move abroad to seek better opportunities”, – Karolina Sobczak-Szelc comments. Researchers have also found a mismatch between aspirations and actual migration. They observed that legal migration is increasingly perceived as an unattainable dream rather than a feasible, planned project. This finding was especially relevant in Tunisia, Senegal and Iraq. While analysing Ukrainians‘ views on international migration in the pre-war times, researchers found little or almost no aspirations to migrate abroad. Instead, interviewees talked about their sentimental relations to the country and their wish and moral duty to contribute…