Unfolding Tomorrow — Rethinking energy

We’ve known for a long time that we need more renewable energy. Cutting down on fossil fuels is an important part of slowing down climate change — and according to the IPCC’s latest report, it needs all the slowing down possible. We’ve acted too slow, however, and are now caught with our pants down as a war in Europe is bound to deepen the already significant energy crisis by raising the prices of fossil fuels even further.

How did we get to this? What have we already done, and what can Finland, companies and you do to increase the share of renewables and decrease our dependency on imported fuel? It’s time to rethink how we see energy.

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

Unfolding Tomorrow is an event series by AVP and Aaltoes that brings the brightest minds in business, academia, and government together to talk about what we can do today to make tomorrow better. The event topics come from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and their targets and indicators.

This Unfolding Tomorrow session is about SDG 7: ‘Affordable and clean energy’ and more specifically about Target 7.2: ‘By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.’

We’re joined by experts from politics, academics, and business for brief introductory talks followed by a panel discussion.

Speaker lineup:

• Annukka Santasalo-Aarnio, Assistant Professor at Aalto University
• Risto Penttinen, Executive Vice President of Uniper
• Atte Harjanne, Vice-Chair of the Greens in Finland
• Moderated by Jussi Impiö, Head of Sustainability at Aalto University

You’ll hear about the energy crisis from different perspectives, learn about the different possibilities and restrictions of renewable energy sources, and understand better how our actions can make a difference in where our energy comes from.

Meet the speakers

Risto Penttinen

Executive Vice President, Uniper

Risto Penttinen is the Executive Vice President, Strategy, Corporate Development and M&A at Uniper. Before his current role, he was the Senior Vice President, Strategy, People and Performance at Fortum Corporation and a member of Fortum Executive Management Team. Prior to joining Fortum, Penttinen was a partner at McKinsey & Company where he served energy, basic materials (metals, pulp & paper, chemicals), machinery and the public sector. Penttinen holds a MSc (Economics) from the Helsinki School of Economics. He is the Vice-Chairman of Board of Directors at Varma.

Annukka Santasalo-Aarnio

Assistant Professor, Aalto University

Assistant professor Annukka Santasalo-Aarnio is the head of Energy Storage research team at Aalto University School of Engineering. The research focus areas in her team are power-to-fuels, thermal energy storage systems and materials, non-battery energy storage systems for grid stabilization and harvesting energy from end-of-use batteries. She is leading research projects from Academy of Finland and directly with industry and currently has a research team of 15 researchers working on these topics. She is also the responsible professor at Aalto for the InnoEnergy Energy Storage master program running from 2020 onwards.

Atte Harjanne

Vice Chair, Greens in Finland

Atte Harjanne is a Member of Parliament, Chair of the Green Parliamentary Group, Vice-Chair of the Greens and City Councilor in Helsinki. Harjanne holds a master's degree in engineering and is currently pursuing a PhD in Aalto University School of Business. Prior to Parliament, Harjanne worked as a researcher studying the economic and social effects of climate change. In Parliament, Harjanne is a member of the Defense and Finance Committees and a member of the Advisory Council of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.