Funded projects

Technology Myth Busters is a one-year media project that brings research-based knowledge into public debates on the green transition. The project challenges common technology myths – such as the belief in decoupling and the assumption that technological innovations alone can solve the ecological crisis. Researchers and journalists will co-author articles on the possibilities and limits of, e.g., carbon removal and capture, the hydrogen economy, small modular reactors, AI solutions, energy system digitalisation, and climate engineering. In addition, more general texts will address techno-optimism and its role in sustainability transitions. All texts will be written in accessible language and published throughout the year in multiple media outlets, creating a visible intervention in public debate. The aim is to challenge unrealistic expectations and strengthen the imagining of sustainable futures as well as the political and cultural solutions required by the sustainability transition.

This PhD project examines what kinds of technologies and innovations are needed to achieve well-being within the planetary boundaries. The research focuses on exploring an economic system that prioritizes reducing energy and material use instead of growth. The project challenges mainstream conceptions of sustainable innovations and technology, as studies show that green innovations are still unable to fully decouple economic growth from environmental harm. By employing a systematic literature review, a qualitative case study in an indigenous community in Ecuador, and policy workshops, the project identifies the technologies and innovations required to ensure well-being within planetary boundaries. By challenging mainstream ideas of sustainable innovation, the project goes beyond traditional techno-pessimistic critiques and creates forward-looking understanding of what kinds of innovations, along with related policy measures, can reduce material and energy consumption.

This two-year project builds on the STRAWCO networking project, funded by the Nordic Ministers via the Nordic Arctic Program. STRAWCO promotes collaboration among academics, municipalities, and waste companies across northern Finland, Norway, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands to facilitate knowledge exchange in municipal solid waste management (MSWM). This new project expands networking efforts and explores cross-regional city collaborations to support communities, policymakers, and waste companies in sustainable MSWM. MSWM remains a major challenge for societies, ecosystems, and governance, especially in Arctic urban areas. Local authorities and waste operators must develop innovative, context-specific strategies. Using multilevel, collaborative governance frameworks and participatory qualitative research methods, this project aims to promote sustainability by addressing disparities in Arctic waste management and preserving planetary boundaries such as climate change and land system.

The project strengthens and accelerates the cultural sustainability transition of individuals, communities, and society as a whole by bringing together Finland’s 152 museums into a professional museum network that will serve as a permanent Heritage Futures Network for this work. ‘Heritage futures’ consists of meaningful actions that today have an impact on a more sustainable future. The process of joint development between museums aims to create new museum strategies, tools and practices that accelerate the transformation to sustainability. Planetary well-being requires socially influential and reliable actors, such as museums. The ultimate goal of the project is to bring about ambitious change in both the core activities of museum work and the everyday lives of museum users. The project will initially be implemented with €100,000 in funding, but the aim is to scale up in order to increase its impact.

Bryophytes are a key component of biodiversity and ecosystem productivity in tundra and can strongly influence essential ecosystem functions. Yet, their vulnerability to global changes such as climate warming, nutrient enrichment and changes in grazing pressure remains poorly understood, as do the consequences for the functions they support. This research project aims to disentangle the mechanisms driving bryophyte diversity and abundance change by experimentally testing the role of vascular plant–bryophyte competition and bryophyte trait change under multiple global changes. Further, it will assess how these shifts in bryophytes affect essential ecosystem functions, such as carbon and nitrogen cycling, water retention and hydrology, and soil temperature. In the context of accelerating climate change, this work is crucial for predicting and preserving tundra biodiversity and ecosystem integrity.

Fertilizers are required to support global food security but ineffective use leads to eutrophication, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas emissions. In Nordic countries, short growing seasons, high rainfall and permeable soils cause significant nitrogen and phosphorus losses that threaten the Baltic Sea and freshwater lakes. Conventional “slow-release” fertilizers depend on synthetic polymer coatings that persist as microplastics. This project develops lignin–hemicellulose granules and gels with tunable swelling and degradation, and enzyme-responsive lignin carriers that release nutrients in response to biological triggers, including β-glucosidase, cellulase, urease, and phosphatases for major Nordic crops. Soil tests will assess nutrient use efficiency, leaching reduction, and microbiome interactions. By combining renewable lignin, hemicellulose, and biodegradable linkers, bio-based fertilizers will be developed to enhance nutrient delivery and support climate-resilient agriculture.

The project develops a new version of the Cultivating Life (Elämänjalotus) method by initiating the previously missing researcher collaboration, ensuring suitable theoretical frameworks and continued relevance. It scales the method’s use to four major NGOs. The method aims to strengthen individual agency, support communities’ sustainability work, and position Finland as a forerunner in addressing the sustainability crisis. It helps people and communities shift toward sustainable and good lifestyles within planetary boundaries. By making knowledge understandable and practical, it enables everyone to adopt sustainability skills. The method will be enhanced through co-creation, new communication materials, and facilitator training. Research collaboration is with Annukka Vainio, Tuuli Hirvilammi, and Frank Martela. Scaling collaboration is with the Guides and Scouts of Finland, the Finnish Local Heritage Federation, the Finnish Association of Adult Education Centres, and Citizen Forum.

The project explores the meaning and potential of the Rights of Nature (RoN), a legal approach that recognizes nature as a subject with intrinsic value. The focus is on the Torne River, flowing along the Finnish-Swedish border and overseen by bodies such as the Transboundary River Commission. This ecoculturally diverse area faces pressures from mining and accelerating climate change. The research asks how artistic practices can foster more-than-human agency and recognition of RoN in decision-making through experimental, multisensory methods. Approaches include participatory walks and multisensory ethnography with local residents. The aim is to develop models for implementing RoN and strengthen river-related cross-border communities. The project contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and is situated within the rAt research group at Aalto University’s Department of Art and Media.

This doctoral project investigates how agricultural practices and habitats shape food resources and the health of farmland birds in Finland. Farmland bird populations have declined due to intensification and habitat loss, yet essential ecological mechanisms, including trophic pathways, behind these trends remain poorly understood. Focusing on Barn Swallows and Starlings, the study combines long-term ringing data, land-use records, insect prey surveys, DNA-metabarcoding and fatty acid analyses to trace how farming practices influence food availability, diversity, and nutritional quality, and how these affect nestling development and survival. Three complementary studies assess population-level responses, farm-scale food webs, and experimental supplementation of essential fatty acids. By clarifying causal pathways between farming and biodiversity, the project aims to refine environmental instruments and support a transition toward sustainable, biodiversity-friendly agriculture.

Drainage of peatlands causes significant climate and water emissions and leads to loss of biodiversity. Wetland solutions, such as restoration and paludiculture, can help recover peatland ecosystems and reduce emissions. Paludiculture is an active approach that enables the integration of ecological and climate benefits with sustainable production. In a preceding development project, Sphagnum cultivation areas were established on a former peat extraction site. My doctoral research aims to assess whether Sphagnum transplantation succeeded and whether a functioning peatland ecosystem can be restored. This study consists of three sub-studies: identifying optimal conditions for Sphagnum-dominated vegetation regrowth, evaluating the transition from an emission source to a carbon sink, and examining how species traits and diversity influence biomass production and ecosystem functioning.

This ethnographic research project examines climate politics and the reception of climate knowledge in the context of polycrisis in Lebanon, located in the Eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon’s economic collapse, sociopolitical crisis, and war form the backdrop for climate politics, approached through the concept of climate collapse. The project follows grassroots environmental movements and externally funded climate initiatives, analyzing the colonial and technocratic dimensions of climate action. Ethnographic fieldwork produces empirical data and conceptual tools for understanding planetary and earthbound climate dynamics. The research challenges eurocentric conceptions of climate politics by showing how climate action is connected to global power relations of funding, expertise, and governance, and how local actors reshape sustainability thinking amid crisis.

This dissertation explores how wardrobe practices can foster agency, sufficiency, and sustainability in response to fashion’s systemic failures. Focusing on idle clothes that accumulate between purchase and discard, it develops a “post-anxiety wardrobe” where dressing becomes an act of autonomy, joy, and integrity rather than stress or dependency on fast fashion. Grounded in Domestication Theory and Self-Determination Theory, the study is situated in Wardrobe Studies and carried out as Research through Design in a three-phase longitudinal process with 17 women in Helsinki: wardrobe disruption, redesign of idle garments, and reinsertion of redesigns. Methods include in-wardrobe interviews, wardrobe logging, journaling, and abductive thematic analysis. Expected outcomes include reduced waste, stronger personal style, enhanced well-being, and greater sufficiency. Findings can inform redesign-centred practices in fashion, as well as tools for education, policy, and consumer empowerment.

Reducing meat consumption is essential for halting biodiversity loss and mitigating climate change, but implementing hard policy measures is difficult without public support. Decision-makers currently lack data on which policies are acceptable to citizens and why. This project addresses that gap by producing concrete policy recommendations based on a nationally representative survey and structural equation modeling. It evaluates the public acceptance of 20 policy options and identifies factors that increase legitimacy. The results offer essential knowledge for advancing meat reduction fairly and effectively. The resulting policy recommendations will be communicated directly to decision-makers, as well as to the media and the general public. The project supports Finland’s goal to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and contributes to achieving carbon neutrality by 2035.

This project investigates how climate-driven shifts in wintering areas affect the long-term viability of Baltic Caspian Terns (Hydroprogne caspia). The population, listed as Vulnerable, crashed in the 1990s but shows recent stabilization. All Baltic terns migrate to Africa, spending several years in the Sahel before returning to breed, making them highly exposed to drought and habitat degradation there. By combining over 60,000 ringing recoveries with GPS tracking of 250 individuals, we will test whether wintering distributions have shifted away from the Sahel, whether Swedish and Finnish colonies differ, and how survival varies between wintering areas. Linking these results to climate indices and demographic trends will clarify whether current stabilization reflects a sustainable recovery or a fragile balance. The findings will directly inform Red List assessments in Finland and Sweden and contribute to conservation of migratory species as part of the global environmental commons.

The project strengthens the role of education in sustainability transition by organising two comprehensive in-service training programmes for basic and upper-secondary teachers – particularly in geography, chemistry, biology, and social studies – to address environmental issues through interdisciplinary, experimental, and participatory methods. Working with researchers and science-education specialists at the Faculty of Science (University of Helsinki), teachers will co-design, pilot, and refine various teaching materials and models together with their students. The most effective and inspiring approaches, along with all supporting materials, will be compiled into an openly licensed teacher’s guide for use across Finnish schools. In doing so, the project will reach large numbers of young people. Combining research on planetary boundaries and the geographies of young people, this interdisciplinary project builds hope for a more sustainable future through concrete everyday experiences.

The aim of this post-doctoral project is to assess forest management effects on the soil fungal community and infer implications for soil carbon (C) storage and quality. Trees take up C and allocate it belowground as root exudates which feed soil microbes. Microbial necromass is a major part of the soil C pool, notably stabilized mineral-associated organic matter. Tree harvesting alters this underground C supply. Particularly clear-cutting, applied in rotation forest management, affects the soil fungal community and may change stabilization processes of soil fungal necromass. Continuous-cover forestry may be an alternative to sustain fungal community and soil C storage. We compare the effects of the two management systems on fungal communities and stabilization of soil fungal necromass in a field study of Scots pine forests on three study sites in southern Finland. We use analyses of soil fungal DNA, physical fractionation of soil C and glucosamine as a biomarker for fungal necromass.

Recent research warns that Earth may be approaching climate tipping points–thresholds beyond which changes become self-reinforcing and irreversible. One of the most serious risks is the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a key ocean current regulating Europe’s climate. Its slowdown would bring colder winters in Finland, disrupted precipitation, altered storm tracks and global shifts in temperature and ecosystems. These changes would cascade through food, energy and water, threatening human well-being, economic stability and security. This project uses expert-informed scenario analysis to explore AMOC impacts on Finland, focusing on food production while considering broader societal and geopolitical consequences. By combining the latest climate science with strategic foresight, it provides tools for anticipating, preparing for and mitigating existential climate risks, highlighting that rapid greenhouse gas reduction is crucial to prevent them.

Structural overconsumption not only causes significant environmental and social harm but also leads to resource dependencies, increasing exposure to geopolitical risks. To address structural overconsumption, this project introduces the concept of structural sufficiency. The project applies this concept to the green transition, focusing on energy and considering its geopolitical implications alongside its ecological and social effects. The research papers explore the topic from the perspectives of energy, the mining industry, and industrial policy, and finally propose possible trajectories for structural sufficiency using the Delphi method. The project examines how ongoing societal transitions can be aligned with structural sufficiency. The aim is to develop a strategy that accounts for foreign policy realities and provides new tools to enhance ecological, social, and geopolitical resilience.

Young people see the sustainability transition as one of the most important issues of our time. They also face major challenges in balancing the planet’s carrying capacity in the near future. In this youth-led action project 1) a new kind of sustainable way of living in the city will be built in the ‘Planetary Garden’, taking care of sustainable well-being among all living, and learning about sustainable food systems; 2) actively encourages other neighborhoods and municipalities to build similar intergenerational, youth-oriented, sustainable community spaces for living and being through communication and interaction; 3) Encourage young people nationwide to participate in Finland’s climate and environmental policy and implement the Children and Youth Environmental Declaration in schools and educational institutions. The scientific basis for the action project comes from planetary youth research, in which the sustainability transition is examined and resolved together with young people.

This research advances sustainability transformation by adding knowledge about permafrost and its connections to climate change. The project uses a unique combination of multi-sensor remote sensing and field data to study palsa mire dynamics. Due to climate change, these subarctic carbon stores and biodiversity hotspots are among the most threatened habitats in Europe. Their degradation contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, hydrological and ecological shifts, and reduced ecosystem services. A better understanding of how palsa mires in different environments respond to climate forcing is crucial for their effective protection. By developing a monitoring framework and identifying both vulnerable and resilient palsa mire areas, the project generates actionable knowledge to support early detection of permafrost degradation and to inform conservation and climate strategies. Strong emphasis is placed on long-term monitoring, international collaboration, and diverse communication.

Digitalisation and sustainability are key developments of recent decades, yet they have largely evolved separately. The Sustainable Digital Everyday Life project challenges the view of digitalisation as a solution to the sustainability crisis by highlighting the environmental impacts of digital consumption and devices. The project responds to the lack of awareness of digital sustainability, as highlighted by research, by popularising scientific knowledge and fostering public debate on the issue. Training library staff strengthens their competence in raising awareness of sustainable digital practices. At the same time, a model for digital clean-up will be developed, piloted, and scaled nationally. The project culminates in March 2027 during the international Digital CleanUp Day, with events held in libraries across Finland.

Biodiversity is rapidly declining due to human actions, disintegrating the biosphere, making human persuasion crucial for conservation. However, existing evidence for such successful interventions remain limited, lacking robust impact evaluations across cultural contexts. While visual engagement is widely studied, sound’s cross-cultural influence is overlooked. This project aims to utilize the power of sound for conservation efforts, by providing counterfactual evidence, and developing practical guidelines. For this, we will explore how media composition, narrative transportation, and exposure to native and exotic soundscapes may influence conservation-related human behaviors in the rich cross-cultural contexts of Finland and India. This interdisciplinary, mixed-methods project blends media studies, marketing, behavioral science, cultural geography, and eco-acoustics. Collaborating with sound designers, it aims to tackle global and local biodiversity conservation.

Global timber trade links biodiversity with economic systems. Yet, it often reduces rich forest ecosystems to vague commercial categories like ‘tropical hardwoods’ or ‘Baltic birch’ – erasing species-level knowledge. This abstraction weakens efforts to protect biosphere integrity. From Finland’s 30 native tree species to the DRC’s 400, both countries are part of complex networks where biodiversity and legality face growing scrutiny. This project explores the epistemic and ecological consequences of this data gap: What is lost when trees are stripped of their names in trade data? Combining political ecology of timber trade databases, rigorous data analysis, and evocative storytelling, it aims to revalue forest resources and make visible the species that are often lost in the abstraction of trade statistics.

Finnish agriculture is increasingly vulnerable to climate change, facing more frequent droughts and nutrient runoff from heavy rainfall. These pressures not only threaten food security but also risk pushing natural systems beyond planetary boundaries, such as freshwater use, nutrient cycles, and biodiversity integrity. This doctoral research develops an integrated, AI-enabled water management system for Finnish crop cultivation, combining smart irrigation and controlled drainage to enhance water efficiency, reduce nutrient loss, and strengthen resilience to floods and droughts. By grounding the system in real farming conditions and bioeconomic modelling, the project delivers practical adaptation strategies that safeguard soils, waters, and ecosystems. The outcomes will support Finland’s climate adaptation goals while contributing to sustainability transformations that protect natural systems essential for human and non-human life.