On MTV’s Huomenta Suomi program, Lasse Peltonen (co-founder of Akordi and professor of environmental conflict management at the University of Eastern Finland) and Satu Penttinen (campaign director at Business Finland) discussed critical minerals, their extraction in Finland, and how mining could be carried out in a way that is sustainable for the environment and local communities.

The discussion covered topics such as

• the environmental impact affecting water and loss of nature,
• local and national benefits,
• Finland’s attractiveness, and
• the need for cumulative impact assessment.

Watch the discussion here (in Finnish). The discussion begins at 41:25 and ends at 53:35.

In addition: Akordi organizes training on strategic stakeholder engagement in mining projects related to critical minerals in Sodankylä on November 5-7. Read more in our training calendar and apply by October 17! The training is in Finnish.

Sara Vanhanen, who has worked as a project worker at Akordi, examined the Fosen wind power conflict from the perspective of ontological conflict and green extractivism in her master’s thesis. In this blog post, Sara explains what the conflict is about and how these perspectives manifest themselves in the case. The full thesis can be read here.

How I came to study the Fosen wind power conflict

I first became aware of the human rights violations taking place in Fosen, Norway, when my Norwegian friends shared Instagram posts by Sámi activists on social media about a protest in early spring 2023. Supported by climate activists, the Sámi protested against the government’s inaction following a Supreme Court ruling that declared the construction permit for the Fosen wind farm invalid. I followed the situation through social media at the time. I was affected by the case in a new way in the spring of 2024, when Sámi activists were engaged in a new legal battle. This time, the dispute concerned a protest in which activists had occupied the lobby of a ministry and were fined for their actions.

During the trial, I was living next to the Oslo District Court while doing my university internship at the Oslo Defense Attaché’s Office. So, for several days, we passed each other on the street as I headed to the embassy and the activists made their way to the courthouse. After I returned from Norway, I decided to write my master’s thesis on the Fosen case. The thesis is a case study that analyzes 18 different documents, ranging from social media posts to official government documents and a current affairs program on the state media NRK.

P.S. The activists’ fines were overturned by the Supreme Court in the summer of 2025. A great victory for democracy!

What happened in the Fosen wind power conflict?

Fosen is located on the west coast of Norway, on the southern border of the Sámi homeland. The Sámi people of the Fosen region belong to the Southern Sámi, who are a minority within the Sámi people and speak their own language. A military firing range was planned in the area from the 1970s until the 1990s, when wind power began to emerge as a possibility. After the turn of the millennium, the area was included in various wind power studies and impact assessments.

• 2008 – The area is included in a wide-ranging impact assessment that considers the potential impacts of more than twenty different wind farms.
• 2010 – The decision to build wind power in Fosen is announced.
• 2013 – The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy responds to an appeal, resulting in minor changes to the building licenses, but all planned licenses remain valid.
• 2014 – The two local reindeer herding co-operatives, the South Fosen Reindeer Herding Co-operative and the North Fosen Reindeer Herding Co-operative, challenge the license in court.
• 2015 – The project operator and developer Statkraft announces that it is withdrawing from all wind power projects in the Nordic countries due to poor economic viability.
• 2016 – Under political pressure, Statkraft resumes its activities and begins construction in Fosen.
• 2018 – The district court hears the challenge to the building license that was filed in 2014. After the proceedings, the case advances to the next level of jurisdiction. At this point, the United Nations (UN) asks Norway to suspend the construction of the turbines due to the ongoing legal proceedings. However, the Norwegian government does not comply with the request and denies that there has been a human rights violation in Fosen.
• 2019/2020 – The turbines are completed and the wind farms begin operating.
• 2020 – The case is heard in the Court of Appeal, but proceeds to the Supreme Court after both parties appeal the decision.
• 2021 – The Supreme Court declares the license invalid. The wind farms should never have been built.
• 2023 – In February, the Norwegian Sami Association (Norske Samers Riksforbund) and the nature conservation organization Natur og Ungdom (Nature and Youth) organize a large demonstration in Oslo 500 days after the ruling. The demonstration also receives international media attention, which is likely to be increased by the presence of climate activist Greta Thunberg. During the same year, several demonstrations are held in Oslo to mark 600 and 700 days since the ruling, leading up to the second anniversary of the ruling.
• 2023 – The South Fosen Reindeer Herding Co-operative and Fosen Vind sign a joint agreement in December.
• 2024 – The North Fosen Reindeer Herding Co-operative and Roan Vind sign a joint agreement in March.

This brings the Fosen wind power conflict to a nominal end in the spring of 2024. The agreements promise the Sámi, for instance, financial compensation for the harm caused by wind power and alternative winter pastures. The latter agreement also includes the establishment of a Southern Sámi cultural fund. Both agreements allow the turbines to remain in operation until the current license expires, after which the Reindeer Herding Co-operatives will have the right of veto if a new license is considered.

Now we know what happened in Fosen, but what is this case actually about?

The Supreme Court’s ruling states that Norway needs wind power, but the building permit for the wind turbines in Fosen was invalidated. The court justified this on the grounds that the Southern Sámi are a minority within a minority and are therefore in a very vulnerable position, and that the harm caused by the wind farm to reindeer herding violates Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees minorities the right to their own language and culture. Consequently, arguments comparing, for example, the economic benefits of reindeer herding and wind power are also irrelevant in the eyes of the court. In Fosen, the importance of reindeer herding for Sámi culture and its continuity must be recognised. In Southern Sámi culture in particular, the threat to reindeer herding must be understood as an existential threat to the culture.

In my research, I examined the case from the perspective of ontological conflict, which is a conflict between clashing realities. Through ontologies, we can understand what reality is and how it is created. Reality is created through action and is therefore not limited to what we can perceive with our senses. In Western countries, an ontological view has long prevailed, which has many names, but which I have referred to in my thesis as the One-World-Worldview. In this way of thinking, cultural differences, for example, can be understood, but they are seen as existing within the same shared reality.

Sámi ontology can be categorized as relational ontology, in which not only humans but also non-humans participate in the creation of reality, and in which both human and non-human beings co-exist in a state of interconnectedness. Many traditions are connected to the land, and local traditional knowledge can also be acquired through dwelling in the landscape. In Sámi ontologies, the land is seen as a living entity and can be considered relative to life itself. For this reason, different land requirements in many circumstances appear to the Sámi as existential threats.

In order to understand Sámi ontology and also to perceive ontological conflicts, we must accept the existence of a pluriverse. Somewhat paradoxically, if a one world worldview cannot comprehend the existence of other realities, then naturally it cannot witness a conflict between two or more ontologies either. However, pluriversalism is necessary so that, for example, when conducting mapping, it is possible to take into account aspects of reality that cannot be observed with the naked eye and that may remain completely hidden from those who are not part of that reality. These questions become very topical when we consider, for example, whether land is empty. What appears completely empty and lifeless to one person may be full of life to another. It is therefore very important that the Sámi people are involved in all stages of projects located in their homeland, in particular in mapping and impact assessment.

How does green extractivism feature in the Fosen case?

In addition to ontological conflicts, green extractivism was used as another theoretical framework in my research. There is no single unambiguous definition of extractivism, but it is used to describe processes that are characterized by the production of value in a way that renders the original environment unusable. Inequality in power relations and the violent disregard of the lived reality of the disadvantaged are also often essential elements in this equation. Extractivist processes rely heavily on the perception of the area as lifeless, which is why ontologies and ontological conflicts often become highly relevant in extractivist processes. Extractivism has long roots in colonialism, and the processes were first developed in the peripheries, after which they were brought closer to the centers. Arctic extractivism has emerged in literature in the 2010s. The wind farms in Fosen can also be seen as an extractivist project, as the reality of the Sámi people has been ignored and nature has been altered in a way that has rendered it unusable for the Sámi, with the wind farms generating value elsewhere.

Green extractivism is a concept that has been used in academia when discussing extractivist projects that are justified on the basis of their environmental benefits. Wind power is an excellent example of such a project. The greenness of wind power can be questioned when considering, for example, how much the increasing use of wind power requires the extraction of various minerals. On the other hand, a truly green choice would be to reduce growth and consumption. However, the material I used does not contain any references to degrowth thinking; instead, supporters of wind power justify its necessity largely on the basis of increased employment or economic growth. In these arguments, the green credentials of wind power receive less attention or appear completely questionable. Thus, the documents reveal that wind power is justified mainly on economic grounds, which increases the extractive nature of the project in Fosen.

Climate change is often described as a double-edged sword for the Sámi. Its effects are already visible and are strongest in the polar regions. On the other hand, the measures proposed to combat climate change often increase land use in the Sámi homeland. It is important to understand that the Sámi people and the climate activists who support them are not opposed to “green” initiatives or measures which combat climate change. The opposition to the Fosen wind farm is about opposition to an extractivist project. Perhaps more often, one hears the Sámi people talk about green colonialism. Since extractivism is colonialist in nature, in this case green colonialism can be seen to be realized specifically through a green extractivist project.

What can we learn from this?

It is challenging to summarize a 70-page study in a short blog post. I therefore recommend that readers who have made it this far familiarize themselves with the study itself. However, here is a summary of Fosen’s most important lessons:

1. The Fosen case shows how important it is to comply with both national and international legislation and various agreements. This also includes free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), which, since the completion of the study, has been more clearly incorporated into Finnish national legislation following an amendment to the Sámi Parliament Act.
2. Once all laws are being followed, it’s also important to include the Sámi people in all stages of the project. As I mentioned earlier, mapping and impact assessment are particularly critical in this regard. Only the Sámi people can describe their own lived reality.
3. On the other hand, in order to truly listen to the Sámi people and accept their knowledge, it is also necessary to accept ontological diversity. Otherwise the ontological reality of the Sámi people will remain unrecognized.
4. Finally, I would also urge people to familiarise themselves with the existing knowledge. There is a large amount of accurate and ethically produced research on the Sámi people. Ignorance can therefore appear to be a strategic choice, whereby the rights of the Sámi people are bypassed on the grounds of a lack of knowledge.

Lack of knowledge was also a prominent theme at the Green Youth Camp held in Åland this summer, where the theme was green transition and indigenous peoples. You can find my blog post on the subject here. Akordi has also done its part to address the knowledge gap. I was involved in organizing training on the unique issues relating to the Sámi homeland in the context of the sustainability transition. A recording of the training can be viewed here (in Finnish). The training was definitely one of the highlights of my four-month project period. My time at Akordi is now coming to an end, and I would like to thank Akordi for this summer. Who knows what the future may bring in terms of cooperation!

If my thesis has piqued your interest, you can read it in its entirety here. Please send any questions or other inquiries by email to sara.vanhanen@gmail.com.

Green transition projects often involve local tensions and potential for conflict. In Finland, Akordi is working with our extensive network of partners to develop conflict management capacity and proactive conflict management methods for green transition.

Conflicts show that there are values at stake that are so important that people are prepared to fight for them, writes CEO Jonna Kangasoja in the foreword to our annual report. More systematic local acceptance measures are needed to secure green transition investments. Otherwise, there is a risk that individual projects and the transition as a whole will be delayed.

Akordi proposes an establishment of a national resource centre in Finland, where municipalities, civil society actors and businesses could receive concrete help and support for early project interaction, building a shared knowledge base and risk assessment. We gave our statement to the Room for Growth project working group at the end of the year.

In 2024, we continued our earlier development work on anticipating and resolving conflicts in the green transition with the support of the TAH Foundation. We sparred project developers and authorities in green transition projects across Finland. We published a Playbook for project developers, which guides them step by step on how to anticipate conflicts and work successfully with stakeholders.

“Could this also be made available to international investors in English?”

Markku Kivistö, Business Finland’s Head of Industry, Cleantech, Invest in, at the launch of our Playbook on 7.11.2024

We organised the Green Transition Acceptability event together with TAH Foundation, Confederation of Finnish Industries, Climate Leadership Coalition, Greenpeace, the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, and Kari & Pantsar in November.

At the end of the year, we received funding to launch strategic stakeholder engagement trainings for green transition project developers during 2025.

Cooperation with leading international actors in the field

In the US, experts Steve Greenwood and Kristen Wright from the Oregon National Policy Consensus Center (NPCC), part of our network, visited our open events in August 2024.

“It has been a wonderful partnership with Akordi over the past nine years.”

Steve Greenwood, National Policy Consensus Center expert at our event on 20 August 2024

In Europe, our closest partner is WesselinkVanZijst in the Netherlands, which hosted our June excursion with the steering group of our TAH Foundation funded project. In November, Hans van Zijst gave a keynote speech at a seminar on our project in Finland.

A social mission

Akordi is a forerunner in Finland offering and developing the professional role of a neutral party in environmental collaboration, conflict resolution, and public policy mediation. Our goal is to promote and develop collaborative, multi-sectoral approach in Finnish policymaking and decision-making and while doing it, create a wiser and more sustainable society. Our work has a strong research base.

In difficult situations, such as the Gulf of Bothnia nature conservation disputes, we mediate multiparty negotiations.

”Det handlar om mer än etablerande av naturskyddsområdet. Det handlar också om konfliktlösning och bearbetande av myndighetsförakt.”

John Erickson, Ordförande för Världsarvsdelegationen för Kvarkens världsarv.

In 2024, we were involved in fifteen planning, policy and decision-making processes on natural resources and environmental change and published seven freely available publications.

We are a social enterprise. This means that we use our business to solve societal problems. We are a non-profit organisation. Akordi has the Social Enterprise label of the Finnish Work Association.

Read more about our last year: Akordi’s Annual Report (in Finnish).

At the start of the year, it’s common to think about priorities so that it’s easier to focus on those things you really want to spend your limited time on. At Akordi we have chosen the key themes we want to focus on this year.

Green Transition projects are among the biggest opportunities for economic growth in Finland. At the same time, it is already clear that some degree of tensions and conflicts will accompany the sustainability transition. Conflicts translate into direct and indirect costs on projects, developers and stakeholders. The most obvious costs are project delays or cancellations, projects having to be redesigned, reintroduced into decision-making, etc. To local communities the negative impacts of projects are very significant ‘costs’, although they are more difficult to measure. To be successful, projects need to take into account and minimize project risks. Not gaining acceptability from the local community should be understood as a major risk.

Learning from international examples

In many countries, the state has systematically invested in supporting the process side of green transition projects, thus reducing risks: in Denmark, a mobile team of renewable energy experts helps municipalities manage the risks of renewable energy projects. A ‘travel team’ was established in 2022 in cooperation between three ministries under the National Climate Agreement.

In the US, the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) provides loans for energy transition projects with a mandate of around $400 billion. The unit aims to ensure the success of projects by emphasising project risk management. Success depends on early and effective dialogue and local community buy-in.

In these international examples, local acceptance is seen as one of the keys to project success, and local dialogue is understood as an important part of project risk mitigation.

From consultations to partnerships

We need better processes in Finland. Local needs and realities have to be the starting point of project development. Partnership emerges out of having an actual say and being listened to.

Partnership-type of arrangements can be supported by principles and tools of collaborative governance. Partherships can also take the form of contracting, which involves local negotiation on how to share the benefits and disadvantages of a project (see the news on Juha Kotilainen’s PhD thesis).

New kinds of processes require new kinds of expertise. Also, the use of specialised process facilitators and mediators can make a big difference.

Putting more effort into early stages of project development makes it possible to address problems and controversial issues before they lead to complaints and conflicts escalate.

Akordi’s resolution for 2025 is to keep our eyes and ears open, so that we can help create connections where they are missing, and to make space for fresh thinking which is needed for crafting feasible solutions to the challenges ahead.

Jonna Kangasoja

Chief Executive Officer of Akordi

The local opposition to the green transition is not just about fear, but about the real impact of the projects on nature and on local residents and businesses. There may be values at stake that are so important that people are prepared to fight for them.

Event on the acceptability of the Green Transition, organized in Helsinki 7.11.2024, looked at the implementation of the green transition in Finland. Opening the event, Antti Herlin, Chairman of the Board of the TAH Foundation, stressed the key importance of acceptability in promoting the green transition and seizing its opportunities in Finland.

“It is important to discuss both stumbling blocks and solutions to strengthen acceptability in Finnish society and locally at project level.”

Antti Herlin, Chairman of the Board, TAH Foundation

Among the speakers, Professor Lasse Peltonen, the Chairman of the Board and one of the founders of Akordi, drew attention to the costs of conflict.

“The costs of delaying a project include running costs, lost revenue opportunities, lawsuits, fines, increased cost of financing and loss of confidence. So acceptability itself is a major factor in green transition projects. However, this is often not factored into the risks and challenges.”

Lasse Peltonen, Chairman of the Board, Akordi

Minister of the Environment and Climate Kai Mykkänen stressed the huge importance of the green transition for Finland’s economy. The Minister outlined the reform of the licensing administration in line with the one-stop-shop principle and highlighted the Government Programme’s aim to increase the obligations for wind power to improve social acceptability.

Other perspectives on the local acceptability of the transition were offered by project operators and politicians who participated in the panel discussions.

Hans van Zijst from WesselinkVanZijst, a Dutch partner of Akordi, stressed the importance of strategic stakeholder cooperation. According to him, the license to operate granted by law is not sufficient for sustainable growth. Strategic Stakeholder Engagement works towards the license to grow, granted by stakeholders.

“Non-technical, i.e. political and stakeholder-related, reasons account for the majority of industrial investment failures.”

Hans van Zijst, Senior Consultant at WesselinkVanZijst

At the event, Jonna Kangasoja, CEO of Akordi, published a playbook to support actors in the green transition. To harness the growth potential of the green transition, new skills are needed to manage its local impacts. Akord has a decade of experience in conflict prevention in Finland. By carefully defining the issues to be addressed, acceptable solutions can be formulated. Solutions serve everyone, but they require cooperation between many.

“It is at the local level that we need to learn about conflict resolution methods. Project actors need proactive rules of the game and a checklist of methods to strengthen acceptability. The Green Transition Playbook will help actors reconcile the needs of local communities with environmental values.”

Jonna Kangasoja, CEO of Akordi

The event was held in Helsinki on 7.11.2024. It was organised by the TAH Foundation, the Confederation of Finnish Industries, the Climate Leadership Coalition, Greenpeace, the Finnish League for Nature Conservation and Akordi.

Download Akordi’s playbook for green transition actors (in Finnish).

In June, Akordi and its steering group visited the Netherlands to see how the green transition projects are being implemented. Participants in the tour were Henna Hakkarainen, Executive Director of the TAH Foundation, which funds Akordi’s development work on proactive solutions to green transition conflicts, Johanna Kentala-Lehtonen, Secretary General of the Sustainability Panel, Touko Sipiläinen, Country Director of Greenpeace, Teppo Säkkinen, Energy and Climate Specialist at the Chamber of Commerce, and Taru Tujunen, Communications Specialist. From Akord’s own team, Jonna Kangasoja, Lasse Peltonen, Minna Näsman and Emma Luoma participated.

When it comes to offshore wind power, the Netherlands is a decade ahead of Finland. René Moor (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy) presented the development of offshore wind power in the Netherlands. The key message to Finland was a strongly coordinated roadmap, where the steps for offshore wind development and siting are clear to all. The government’s own body will provide the best possible and comprehensive survey of project development sites, which will be available to all project operators when making bids. In this way, high quality surveys are carried out – only once.

Learnings on ecological compensation

The visit also provided an opportunity to learn about the monitoring of the ecological compensation scheme implemented as part of the extension of the Port of Rotterdam (Maasvlakte 2). The implementation of nature compensation has an impact on fishing areas in particular and negotiations have been difficult. The case was presented in a workshop, where the main negotiator for the nature organisation, a representative of the port of Rotterdam, and the Dutch partner of Akordi, WesselinkvanZijst, who acted as mediator and led the negotiations for both the port extension and the monitoring of the nature compensation, explained the steps in the process. WesselinkvanZijst’s approach to strategic stakeholder cooperation is one of the best practices that can be learned from in Finland.

Inspiring international examples

As part of the excursion, Akordi’s steering group also used the workshop to concretise how, in the coming years, Akordi’s procedures based on staged negotiation between the parties and professionally conducted stakeholder work will be scaled up in Finland. David Fairman (Consensus Building Institute, USA), Marc Wesselink and Mart Scheepers (WesselinkvanZijst) supported and sparred the workshop. Based on international examples and the experience already gained in Finland, it is evident that new methodological approaches are needed in transition management to strengthen joint problem-solving and to support decision-making at local, regional and national level.

International examples play a key role in the project “Anticipating and resolving conflicts in the green transition”, funded by the TAH Foundation. Other priorities include skills development and the piloting and dissemination of models based on shared problem-solving. The project is currently working on guides for green transition project developers and municipalities to support transition management.

Stay tuned!