Each year, the program has one main topic, and this year the topic was the Green Shift. What is the green shift, and how can we achieve it in the Arctic? In contradiction to what many people might think, the green shift is not only about building new renewable energy sources and calling it a day. A real sustainable green shift must be sustainable at all levels, from obtaining clean energy to being economically sustainable for businesses and for society.

During this week, we met and listened to many great speakers. We got an opportunity to learn about Arctic security from the Norwegian armed forces, how search-and-rescue actions are coordinated in the North by the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, and we had an opportunity to listen to a representative of the Sami Parliament, who talked about green colonialism. Alongside these sessions, we also got a chance to listen to representatives from Cermaq aquaculture, that talked about their journey to sustainability and the latest upgrades they implemented to their farms, including technology that uses artificial intelligence to identify and follow up each individual fish in a farm (can be over 200 000!) and keep health records for each of them. One of the Emerging Leaders was Cermaq’s Sustainability Manager, and she was enthusiastic about the pH sensor we are currently developing at SFI Smart Ocean and was open to testing the sensor at their facilities. Not only people from businesses were pleased to hear about the pH sensor, but I was also approached by several Emerging Leaders from academia, which expressed their excitement and told me to hurry and get the sensor up and running! It was extremely motivating to see that the work we are doing in SFI Smart Ocean is getting noticed and is also appreciated by the people outside of the centre.