In 2026, our goal at Business Kristinestad will continue to be to create new jobs and new business in Kristinestad. We are doing this to build a better future for Kristinestad.
Many projects in which Business Kristinestad is involved are already progressing. Plans by the hydrogen industry to build facilities in the city that produce new fuels without emissions are moving forward. Many companies have also contacted us about building data centres in the city. When they start operating, they will bring permanent jobs, which will have a significant impact on a municipality in the size of Kristinestad.
However, we want to look at the opportunities more broadly. In Kristinestad, many people have traditionally farmed the land, managed forests, and fished at sea. This creates a lot of side streams that are currently left untapped or are not being exploited to their full potential. We are currently developing solutions to turn fish offal, vegetable scraps, and tree branches, which at worst end up as waste, into not only jobs but also additional income for farmers, forest owners, and those working in the fishing industry.
These new projects are being brought together under the name KristinaEco. We are bringing together researchers, primary producers, and companies to develop new ways of utilising side streams. We simply aim to bring different parties together at KristinaEco, and that way, things can start to happen. Everyone wins in this situation. In a small town, we can sometimes handle things more flexibly than elsewhere, and we are taking advantage of that here.
KristinaEco is not a single project, but a way of thinking, collaborating, and communicating our shared desire to build a sustainable future for Kristinestad. It is an operating environment where companies can grow and develop their products and operations, and researchers can do their work by testing things together with the people who are affected by the research results – in this case, for example, with farmers, fishermen, and forest owners. In everyday life, this may take the form of a lecture for students at the Dux Cultural Centre on Sjögatan in Kristinestad.
KristinaEco is based on a few projects. In the Circular Bioeconomy in Kristinestad project, we have collaborated with local and regional actors to highlight the opportunities offered by the bioeconomy and the circular economy. Our new project is SmartBioLog, which aims to solve the problem of collecting, transporting, pre-processing, and delivering the region’s many scattered by-products for further processing in Kristinestad, Närpes, and Kaskö. Innovation Boost is creating a shared, scalable innovation model for the Suupohja coastal region that will strengthen business development, innovation, and smart specialisation. We would like to thank our financiers, the Regional Council of Ostrobothnia and the European Union, for the opportunity to build a better future, and of course, everyone in Kristinestad for their cooperation with us.
Angelique Irjala
CEO, Business Kristinestad
+358 40 569 3796
angelique.irjala@krs.fi