Emma Salminen (DScEcon&BA) has joined the Korkia consultancy team to strengthen the circular economy expertise of Korkia’s specialist services. Emma has worked with sustainability and circular economy for about ten years, going deep into sustainability strategies, circular economy business models and circular economy consumer roles.
At her latest job at Aalto University, Emma Salminen worked as a researcher in projects that focused on circular economy business models and also as a teacher, lecturing on circular economy, sustainable marketing and service design at the Department of Marketing. Emma’s dissertation studied the role of consumers in circular economy and the extending of the service life of products.
”In addition to service providers, the successful introduction of circular economy products and services requires service design and the understanding of the customer. The work I did with my dissertation on the consumers’ role in circular economy and my experience in service design in consulting projects and university teaching have given me a deeper understanding of the requirements of the transfer to more sustainable solutions,” Emma tells us.
Emma’s dissertation formed a part of a larger, multidisciplinary EU project that focused on the improving of the ecosystem of the Baltic Sea. Emma’s expertise has been still further enhanced through the consultation projects she has carried out on the side of her research and teaching work, in which she has given consultation in the development of service concepts with the help of service design, drafted sustainability reports and prepared market analyses.
”When I taught sustainability and circular economy at Aalto University, I stressed to the students that sustainability can be a driver to growth, and that the transfer to green solutions also requires that profitability remains good. It is interesting to be able to transform these words into more and more concrete actions at Korkia through the company’s sustainable business projects,” Emma says.
”Circular economy is a cross-cutting theme in all of our competence areas. In the transition to circular economy, it is in our special focus to find new, profitable business opportunities, innovative services and, for example, new symbiotic industrial relationships between companies. Emma supplements our team’s circular economy expertise excellently with her solid research experience, service design skills and her practice-oriented way of working. You are warmly welcome to the team, Emma,” says Janika Keinänen, Vice President, Consulting.