Cir­cu­lar Are­na Oulu brought togeth­er cir­cu­lar econ­o­my exper­tise in one place at the North­ern Indus­try Fair

The North­ern Indus­try Fair was held on 20th-21st of May 2026 at Oulu Hall. The fair, held in sum­mery weath­er, attract­ed a total of approx­i­mate­ly 4,000 vis­i­tors. The event brings togeth­er indus­try experts, diverse part­ners, cur­rent infor­ma­tion, solu­tions, and exper­tise under one roof. There were 380 exhibitors, and the event was sold out again this year. Exhibitors were also found in the out­door court­yard of Oulu Hall.

Wednes­day’s pro­gram focused on hydro­gen, and Tuo­mas Savola from Oulun Ener­gia and Sari Kola from Both2nia Hydro­gen Val­ley spoke about the top­ic. The cur­rent state of the hydro­gen sec­tor and growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in North­ern Fin­land were dis­cussed by Tuo­mas Savola, Sari Kola and Alek­si Haver­i­nen from Plug Pow­er, mod­er­at­ed by Tomas Nor­re­na.

The Oulu Cham­ber of Com­merce also orga­nized a major project infor­ma­tion ses­sion that attract­ed an audi­ence. The pan­el was mod­er­at­ed by the Cham­ber of Com­merce’s Esa Pel­likainen and includ­ed Tero Elo from Sky­born Renew­ables, Tero Siivola from Busi­nessTornio, Jöran Sopo from Arc­tial Group, and Vesa Hamari and Kari Lep­istö from the OYS2030 project. The mate­ri­als for the ses­sion can be found on the Cham­ber of Com­merce’s web­site. (The link will open in a new tab.)

Thurs­day’s pro­gram includ­ed a talk on the data cen­ter indus­try by Antti-Jus­si-Laine from Swe­co, and a pre­sen­ta­tion on the future of SSAB by Arto Kan­gas. Ris­to Vuopala from ABB and Eetu Tolva­nen from VincitEAM spoke about main­te­nance, and Marko Kivimä­ki from Hitachi Ener­gy spoke about trans­form­ers. The awards for the main­te­nance devel­op­ment project com­pe­ti­tion were also pre­sent­ed on Thurs­day.

The Cir­cu­lar Are­na Oulu was also found in the depths of Oulu Hall, where six cir­cu­lar econ­o­my com­pa­nies and oper­a­tors were found this year. The Arc­tic Con­struc­tion Clus­ter Fin­land rep­re­sent­ed togeth­er with the RYSKE team. RYSKE focus­es on pro­mot­ing the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my in the con­struc­tion sec­tor, and the Arc­tic Con­struc­tion Clus­ter brings togeth­er edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, author­i­ties and com­pa­nies. XAMK pre­sent­ed the Resep­tiRo­bot­ti project, which aims to enhance the tran­si­tion to a car­bon-neu­tral cir­cu­lar econ­o­my by devel­op­ing a scal­able, dig­i­tal tool for sev­er­al indus­tries.

Fea­sib offers expert ser­vices in the envi­ron­men­tal, ener­gy, cir­cu­lar econ­o­my and min­ing sec­tors, as well as sam­pling and lab­o­ra­to­ry ser­vices. The lab­o­ra­to­ry ser­vices are locat­ed in Nivala. iPro­toxi is an Oulu-based tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny that devel­oped the Aistin ‑sys­tem for indus­tri­al remote mon­i­tor­ing. A demo was also found at the iPro­toxi stand.

The Purku project focus­es on the eco-effi­cient uti­liza­tion of demo­li­tion mate­ri­als in infra­struc­ture and real estate con­struc­tion. Nuvoo (for­mer­ly Taitonet­ti) start­ed as a small gam­ing café and has devel­oped over the years into an online store for used com­put­ers and an inter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny.

The Are­na also housed the Busi­nes­sOulu CleantechOulu booth. Inter­est­ing dis­cus­sions took place in the Are­na on both days and the flow of vis­i­tors remained pleas­ant­ly steady. We would like to thank the com­pa­nies and vis­i­tors who par­tic­i­pat­ed! If you are inter­est­ed in the next Cir­cu­lar Are­na Oulu on 17th–18th of May 2028, please con­tact indus­try coor­di­na­tor Päivi Lehto, paivi.lehtot[at]businessoulu.com.

Text: Han­nele Ter­vo