White Spaces Innovation in Sweden - Innovation policy for ... - Vinnova

WHITE SPACES INNOVATION IN SWEDENhealth scare at Ostersund regarding water indicated and in relation to disaster managementas when major system failures occur as in Haiti, or over water supply after NorthernIreland‟s unexpectedly hard winter. A further suggestion is „disaster stores‟ for foodthat starts renewable but when time-expired become biodegradable.Sustainable Business HubThe relatedness between this cluster concept and most of the preceding ones is obviousand in many cases has been recognised by the cluster agents and mentioned in the aboveaccounts. The proximate „shock‟ that led to the formation of this cluster initiative relates,naturally, to the combination of Climate Change and the Energy Crisis whichinvokes the strategic concept of Smart, Sustainable Cities in which adaptive infrastructuresystems are optimally integrated. There are economic as well as environmentalbenefits from this approach, which are seen in the business potential of the Middle Eastand China as well as, nearer home, upgrading the existing infrastructures in the BalticSea Region. Technologies like renewable energy and sustainable district heating arecases in point. Sustainable Business Hub (SBHUB) is a membership organisation of 120global customer and local supplier firms, municipalities and research institutes throughoutSweden but mainly based in Skåne. Their main focus and interest is in commercialisationof Swedish expertise in systems optimisation for renewable energy production,district heating and cooling, recycling and water and waste management. The strongestexpertise in SBHUB is water and waste management. However, there are other specialistclusters in the overall sustainable innovation platform. Thus SweHeat is the brandnamefor energy production and district heating and cooling. VARIM is the industryassociation for water and water purification and SymbioCity is the organisation promotingwaste management. Because SBHUB works with systems optimisation aspects andexport promotion, there are major synergies with the systems integration aspirations ofthe new „Training Regions‟ cluster with its focus on infrastructure systems resilience(see next section). Demanding customers driving the SBHUB trajectory forward includeSwedish municipalities and cities seeking to exploit scale economies in production anddistribution. For example the Skåne city of Helsingborg is a global leader in aspects of„industrial ecology‟ whereby its waste management process produces inputs for biogasenergy and biofertilizer production.For example, the Filborna recycling facility (Fig. 3.8) used to transport its biofertilizer,some 35,000 tons, with trucks to farmers – at high transport costs and a considerableimpact on the environment. Now the fertilizer is sent to the farms through pipelines.Thus 20,000 square metres of biofertilizer are pumped from the plant to four separatetanks over a radius of 12 kilometres. Each tank is monitored and controlled by theplant‟s master system. Innovation such as this has stimulated cross-cluster interactionswith SFIN (biogas energy optimisation and broader sustainability in the food chain),Packbridge (green packaging) and Mobile Heights (green ICT and transportation). Innovationarising from such interactions ensued at firm-level, including smaller new52