WANO 2023/2024 in brief
Photo: Remiks Miljøpark AS
Waste Management in the High North - New cross-border business opportunities (WANO)
The WANO project is about cross-border business and innovation opportunities in waste management in the Barents Region and High North.
Waste management in the northern latitudes is often more challenging than in the more central regions. Under the Arctic climatic conditions with large distances between settlements and to the recycling facilities, and relatively small markets and volume of produced waste, there are special needs for developing new innovative solutions for waste management.
The waste management companies need to address technological issues of sustainable processing av waste, including incineration and reuse/recycling as well as use of energy and effectiveness, in an Arctic context. Furthermore, the sustainable waste management includes co-operation with Arctic local communities to ensure understanding and acceptance of customers and users, for instance in following the sorting guidelines. These challenges are not limited to one country, and are to a large extent shared by the northernmost regions in all Arctic states. This also creates opportunities for knowledge and experience sharing and collaboration on region-tailored solutions, including new business possibilities.
The need for in-depth examination of such opportunities has been the primary motivation behind the project Waste Management in High North – new cross-border business opportunities (WANO) that has been awarded funding by the Norwegian Research Council NFR for the years 2021-2024. The study will look at the cross-border business and innovation opportunities in the Nordic Arctic within waste management. Moreover
Special focus will be given to the analysis of municipal and industrial waste management in North Norway, with Nordic benchmarking. The project’s overarching ambition is to build sustainable business-to-business and business-to-research networks, both nationally and internationally.
NORCE is the Lead Partner of the study. Other research partners include the Nordic research institute Nordregio. The interdisciplinary research team analyses processes that drive waste management in the Arctic communities while taking into account the national and international and national context. The non-research organisations have an important role especially in the empirical part of the study in 2023-2024. Remiks and Hålogaland Ressursselskap, waste management practitioners in Troms and Finnmark & Nordland , provide their expertise and contacts to WANO project and actively participate in project implementation.