The Role of AI in Finnish Green Economy and Especially in Circular Economy: Challenges and Possibilities

Introduction

Global economy and society have two impressive megatrends: environmentalism due to global warming with greenhouse effects, and digitizing with machine learning and AI (Artificial Intelligence) (Moşteanu, Faccia & Cavaliere, 2020; Karataev, Merkuryev & Titova, 2020; Oricchio, 2021; Vishnevsky et al., 2021). These megatrends have mainly parallel directions to the mankind: environmentalism aims to reduce the speed of the global warming expressing the importance of to diminish Co2 emissions, and digitizing improves the general wellbeing related to the needed raw materials and other resources in production. However, digitizing has also external effects in the form of energy use of the massive engine rooms of data centers by digital service providers (Masanet et al., 2020; Valtioneuvosto, 2021). This chapter focuses on the use of digitizing as a tool in green economy, however. Especially the emerging role of AI in Finnish Green economy, such as in circular economy is the main theme.

This chapter provides the carefully constructed big picture about the state of Finland what it comes to the use of AI and machine learning in the innovations and activities of green economy and circular economy. Analysis covers various perspectives, such as technology, administration, social economy, cooperation and networks between different organizations and actors, financing of the projects for the use of AI in Green economy challenges in Finland.

Especially interesting is to compare Finnish official aims of the use of AI in Green economy with the actual development. The content of the chapter closes up the following research questions or perspectives:

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  the general international progress of AI in the use of green economy and circular economy;

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  the position of the Finnish circular economy technology compared with international technology;

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  the potential gap between the official aims and actual practice in the use of AI in Finnish green economy;

  • -the found features of Finnish green economy, and especially of circular economy related to the possibilities of AI in this branch: What have been done in Finland and What have not been done in order to apply latest technology and AI in the branch of Green economy;

  • -and finally, what is possible to learn internationally about the development and challenges of Finnish green economy and circular economy development.

Figure 1 summarizes the analysis procedure for this chapter. The chapter explores maps the role of AI and digitizing in the Finnish circular economy, drawing from public official reports as the primary source of analysis. Initially, material was gathered using the following Finnish keywords in a Google search: “raportti”, “kiertotalous”, “digitalisaatio” (translated in English: “report”, “circular economy”, “digitizing”), which yielded approximately 12 000 results. Only the first 100 results were examined, and ultimately, only 10 reports were included in the final analysis. These reports were selected based on their public and official nature; specifically, they were not advertisements, they contained sufficient content for analysis, and they either outlined the aims for the circular economy incorporating AI (and digitizing) as a tool, presented achievements in AI-based circular economy initiatives, covered both aims and achievements.

Figure 1.

The procedure of the analysis