Green growth in sparsely populated areas: Public sector innovation and green path renewal

The seminar will touch upon two topics related to the green transition in two Nordic regions, Värmland and Finnish Lapland. First, I will explain the possibilities and limitations to public sector innovation in relation to green policies. Second, I will show how those green policies are influencing the transformation of brown industries, potentially opening spaces for green path renewal. The focus is set on sparsely populated areas because these have been given a prominent role in the processes of greening regional and national economies (providers of high demand of biomass and containers of industrial development), posing new and particular challenges. This presentation builds on two papers, one of which was awarded as the Regional Studies, Regional Science best paper in 2022.