Leading experts help Sweden mobilize for a sustainable society

Published: 28 January 2020

On January 27, international experts and 300 participants from different parts of the Swedish society gathered to explore how we can mobilize for sustainable development. Internationally leading economist Mariana Mazzucato and Professor Banny Banerjee from Stanford were two of the speakers.

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Mariana Mazzucato lectures around the world about the importance of a rapid system change and highlights a mission-oriented way of working to meet today's societal challenges.

Mariana Mazzucato, internationally recognized economist and researcher compares the climate challenge with the moon landing. In a decade, all sectors of society need to gather energy to adapt to sustainable development.

To succeed, a clear, common direction and a broad commitment from everything from business to politics, the public sector, research and private persons is required.

- We must start from a common aim and objective and invite to a stakeholder-managed economy instead of a co-owner economy, says Mariana Mazzucato.

Banny Banerjee, professor at Stanford Changelabs, describes system acupuncture. It is a method for finding common solutions to problems that are large-scale and system-wide with high risk. As an example of complex problems, he cites the threat of biodiversity and the climate crisis, but also the challenges of the welfare sector.

- System-wide challenges require system-level solutions. Large-scale challenges need large-scale solutions. It requires innovation at a whole new level, says Banny Banerjee.

In addition to the international speakers, politicians from three departments participated: Anders Ygeman, Minister of Energy and Digitization, Elin Olsson, Secretary of State for Housing and Finance Minister Per Bolund and Stina Billinger, State Secretary for Minister of Industry Ibrahim Baylan.

The seminar also included Allan Larsson, who talked about the work on five so-called missions within Horisont Europa and specifically about “climate neutral cities” which is one of them. He also talked about a similar initiative in Sweden with nine Swedish cities receiving support through the strategic innovation program Viable Cities, where he is chairman.

In connection with the seminar, Vinnova's international expert council for innovation was launched, which includes Mariana Mazzucato, Banny Banerjee and Bertil Andersson, former rector of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.