Unfolding Tomorrow — Better cities, better planet

How can cities be more sustainable?

Cities are a key contributor to climate change, as urban activities are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The UN estimates that cities are responsible for 75 percent of global CO2 emissions, with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors. The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have raised prices, fueling the global food crisis and making living in cities even more expensive.

In this Unfolding Tomorrow, we’ll discuss what kind of climate action cities can take and how living in cities could be more sustainable and affordable.

At Aalto University, we believe in solving problems related to sustainability through entrepreneurship, facing problems rather than pretending they don’t exist, and educating ourselves rather than using the lack of knowledge as an excuse. And we believe in you.

Unfolding Tomorrow is an event series that brings the brightest minds in business, academia, and government together to talk about what we can do today to make tomorrow better. The topics come from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their targets and indicators. The events are organized together with the UN Association of Finland and the City of Espoo.

This Unfolding Tomorrow session is related to SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities.

We’re joined by experts from politics, NGOs, and business for brief introductory talks followed by a panel discussion. After the talks, you are welcome to stay for further discussions with the speakers and other participants over food and drinks.

Meet the speakers:

Tuuli Hietaniemi

Leading Specialist in Sustainability Solutions at Sitra

Tuuli Hietaniemi is a leading specialist in the Sustainability Solutions theme and produces information to support ambitious climate policy. She also deals with questions on biodiversity and sustainable food systems. She has previously worked as a specialist in Sitra’s Climate solutions project and as a climate specialist at the development organisation Kepa. Tuuli has a master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki. In summer, you may spot Tuuli dancing Lindy hop by the Finnish National Opera.

Alberto Scherb

CEO, Head of GTD and Co-founder of 100 Thousand Million

Alberto Scherb is an angel investor with 20+ years of business experience and both a Technical Degree and an MBA (Duke Fuqua School of Business). He has a strong background in operations management, team building, and supply chain management. Alberto has extensive experience from notable companies like Apple, Nest, Google, Flextronics, Palm and other startups funded by SoftBank or acquired by Apple. At 100TM he is on a mission to create a new standard of living that is human centered, nature focused and sustainable at its core.

Ida Johansson

Product Leader for Advisory Services at Caverion Group

Ida Johansson is the product lead for advisory services at Caverion, a multinational company that design, builds, operates and maintains intelligent and energy-efficient solutions for buildings, infrastructure and industry. Caverion is passionate about creating the right environment for smart and sustainable building stock through increasing the visibility and controllability of buildings, presenting the opportunity to deliver higher user satisfaction and more efficient use of resources.

Ville Taajamaa

Sustainable Development Goals Project Manager at City of Espoo

Dr. Ville Taajamaa (D.Sc. Tech.) is working as a focal point for SDG work in the City of Espoo, Finland. He was the Editor in Chief for Espoo VLR2020 (Voluntary Local Review), developer of the Strategic SDG Sensemaking Tool (SST), and in charge of a five-year project that will integrate Agenda 2030 and SDGs into Espoo strategy and its implementation. During the last seventeen years he has used sustainable front end product development theories, practices and mindset in his teaching, research and consultancy in Europe, US (Stanford University), East-Asia (Fudan University), India and East-Africa (e.g UDSM). He has also worked as a consultant and facilitator for several ministries and industries in Finland and abroad.

Moderated by Eeva Ylikoski

Member of Youth Agenda 2030

Eeva Ylikoski is a student at Diakonia University of applied sciences. She is studying to become a nurse. She is part of the Youth Agenda 2030 group, which is a group formed by the prime minister of Finland to give youth a voice in sustainable development decision-making. She is also interested in the climate crisis and has been really passionate about crises relating to nature since she was young. She thinks that now is the time to act if we want to solve the climate crisis on time.