Reflecting on 2024: SHAPE Milestones and Insights
The SHAPE ecosystem is growing, and we are currently halfway through our five-year project. As we continue on our third year, it is a good time to look back at last year’s achievements and reflect on SHAPE’s progress in 2024.
Throughout the year of 2024, SHAPE has focused on strengthening the ecosystem, through active internal and external communication. Internally, webinars and meetings supported collaboration and alignment across work packages. We also hosted six SHAPE Morning Coffee sessions featuring industry experts like Pasi Rinne, Liisa Ewart, and Tomas Knuts. Externally, the SHAPE website and LinkedIn helped increase visibility and partner engagement.
During 2024 we launched our newsletter, that we send out to members and subscribers every three months. We also started recording our first podcast series called “Think Circular, Act Industrial”, with episodes being published throughout 2025. In the podcast, our SHAPE teammembers meet different industry leaders, sustainability experts and researchers to discuss the real challenges companies face trying to balance profitability with environmental responsibility.
In 2024, SHAPE attended a wide range of events across Finland to strengthen partnerships, share knowledge, and present developments. We also took part in key gatherings such as the World Circular Economy Forum in Brussels, LoopForum in Copenhagen, and several Veturi events.
We celebrated a major milestone in May 2024 with the SHAPE 1-Year Event at Mirka’s headquarter in Jeppo. It was a day of co-innovation, insight, and hands-on collaboration, bringing together around 40 members. In October 2024, the SHAPE & M.INC Innovation Challenge Finale took place in Helsinki to announce the winners of the competition
During 2024, SHAPE also focused on strengthening the ecosystem through Co-Innovation and Co-Research projects. In 2024, we had a total of eight ongoing projects. An upcoming post will dive deeper into each of these projects and the impact they’re set to make, so stay tuned!