Industrial and regional ecology (IRE) team
The Industrial and Regional Ecology (IRE) team is an innovative expert
team concentrating on the environmental quality of the foodchain, sustainable
consumption and regional ecology, which promotes a sustainable food economy by
means of research and development activities. The goal of the IRE team is to
provide the Finnish food chain and rural companies with high level environmental
know-how and improve innovation and competitiveness in entrepreneurship.
The IRE team develops environmental, economic and ecological know-how, knowledge and
tools based on an industrial and regional ecology approach, value chain management and life-cycle thinking for:
- Environmental impact assessments of supply webs (supply chains) and sustainability management
- Management, evaluation and implementation of environmental and sustainability innovations in supply webs (supply chains)
- Designing more sustainable products and systems
- Sustainability assessment of consumption patterns
- Developing eco-products and documentation of the environmental quality of products
- Implementing ethical and social responsibility
- Tracing and risk assessment of foreign elements in food
- Promoting regional environmental improvements and communality
- Promoting rural innovation activity and eco-entrepreneurship
- Developing environmental policy and protection instruments
The IRE team collaborates with a broad range of expert organisations and thus aims at holistic support for economic life and society in making sustainable decisions and choices. Key clients of the team include the food and packaging industry, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Ministry of the Environment in Finland, and the EU.
The IRE team's main areas of expertise include:
- industrial ecology based systems analysis
- life-cycle assessment of environmental impacts
- food chemistry and environmental analysis
- management of international environment projects
- research and promotion of consumer driven innovation activities in small communities and SMEs
- environmental and quality management (ISO 14001 & ISO 9001:2000)
The manager of the IRE team is Virpi Vorne.
Other research scientists are:
Juha-Matti Katajajuuri
Matti Luostarinen
Inkeri Pesonen
Anu Seppälä, leave of absence until July 15th, 2005
Leif Söderlund
Kirsi Usva
Yrjö Virtanen
Pasi Voutilainen
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