Creating responsible business activities with Gaia
Wednesday 10th of April, was a very special day because the
consultancy company called Gaia threw one of its few excursions.
The morning started with a company presentation
from Mari Hjelt. Gaia is probably unknown company for many of the people of Aalto University
despite the fact that so many of its employees has a background in
former schools of Aalto.
Gaia is a consultancy company with roughly 40 professionals (number is
growing) who are located in Finland and all around the world. As Mari
stated, "Gaia has offices in Europe, China, Africa and Latin America,
and we collaborate with clients all around the world through our
network of professionals and partners." Gaia focuses its operation
into 4 different categories: Environment & Responsibility; Cleantech,
Innovation & Finance; Safety & Risk Management; and Energy & Climate.
The company differentiates itself from competitors by being concrete
and by creating high quality understanding over what ever the case at
the moment is. In addition, they often are the mediator when business
consultants, engineering companies and research companies need to work
together. For example, they might be creating a process how a city can
utilize more renewable energy, or making a research how global warming
is affecting farming in Ethiopia or making an assesment what would
happen if chemistry factory would be destroyed during a war.
Mari emphasized the fact that by doing business, they help businesses
to make the world cleaner and safer. From their point of view,
sustainability is a win-win situation for both parties. From my point
of view, there is one win missing because by helping companies become
more environmentally friendly, they are actually helping all of us.
After Mari's interesting presentation, a consultant from Gaia, Laura
Hakala, with few of her
colleagues shared their backgrounds and typical weekly routines by
describing and showing how Gaia way of business works. Typically a
consultant has 5-10 projects ongoing at given time. An individual
project can last from 1 week to 2 years but the majority of the
project last around 3 months. Also, projects vary very much which
means that a consultant has different roles and commitment to
different project (amount of work to be used). Gaia's professionals
are roughly 25-55 years old and the majority are female (60%, editor
note: they wouldn't mind if there would be more men :).
Gaia's excursion definitely left the best for last - the case
competition. Gaia utilized learning by doing method during the last
phase of the excursion. Participants were divided into 3 groups and
were given an exciting challenge: create a project proposal or process
consultation plan for actual case of them. "Winner gets a prize!", was
the motivator in addition to fame and fortune. Cases from which groups
choose their description was:
1. Solar city plan for Kangas area in Jyväskylä
2. Customer- and market-driven business opportunities in bioeconomy in Finland
3. Business development for sustainable charcoal production in Tanzania
4. GHG mitigation and sustainable development through the promotion of
energy efficient cooking in social institutions in Ethiopia
5. Development a consortium for sustainable solutions for post disaster markets
Participants were given restricted amount of time to work with their
case and after-which they presented their work to the "strict" jury.
Embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Video description: Gaia's case video from Ethiopia - how to make
cooking in social institutions more efficient in Ethiopia.
Best team, team "efficient cooking in Ethiopia", was awarded with
great Gaia Buff tube scarfs. Their solution included some of the same
ideas that Gaia's final solution included. What was very interesting
about this case was that Gaia professionals were actually on the site
in Ethiopia to work with this case. They, for example, used local
artists to create a cartoon how to use this new cooker (reading
challenges limits the use of written information).
And, fortunately, also other teams were awarded for good work with
similar Gaia scarfs!
Thank you Gaia for very interesting excursion!
~ Eye-witness, Tuomo
former schools of Aalto.
Gaia is a consultancy company with roughly 40 professionals (number is
growing) who are located in Finland and all around the world. As Mari
stated, "Gaia has offices in Europe, China, Africa and Latin America,
and we collaborate with clients all around the world through our
network of professionals and partners." Gaia focuses its operation
into 4 different categories: Environment & Responsibility; Cleantech,
Innovation & Finance; Safety & Risk Management; and Energy & Climate.
The company differentiates itself from competitors by being concrete
and by creating high quality understanding over what ever the case at
the moment is. In addition, they often are the mediator when business
consultants, engineering companies and research companies need to work
together. For example, they might be creating a process how a city can
utilize more renewable energy, or making a research how global warming
is affecting farming in Ethiopia or making an assesment what would
happen if chemistry factory would be destroyed during a war.
Mari emphasized the fact that by doing business, they help businesses
to make the world cleaner and safer. From their point of view,
sustainability is a win-win situation for both parties. From my point
of view, there is one win missing because by helping companies become
more environmentally friendly, they are actually helping all of us.
After Mari's interesting presentation, a consultant from Gaia, Laura
Hakala, with few of her
colleagues shared their backgrounds and typical weekly routines by
describing and showing how Gaia way of business works. Typically a
consultant has 5-10 projects ongoing at given time. An individual
project can last from 1 week to 2 years but the majority of the
project last around 3 months. Also, projects vary very much which
means that a consultant has different roles and commitment to
different project (amount of work to be used). Gaia's professionals
are roughly 25-55 years old and the majority are female (60%, editor
note: they wouldn't mind if there would be more men :).
Gaia's excursion definitely left the best for last - the case
competition. Gaia utilized learning by doing method during the last
phase of the excursion. Participants were divided into 3 groups and
were given an exciting challenge: create a project proposal or process
consultation plan for actual case of them. "Winner gets a prize!", was
the motivator in addition to fame and fortune. Cases from which groups
choose their description was:
1. Solar city plan for Kangas area in Jyväskylä
2. Customer- and market-driven business opportunities in bioeconomy in Finland
3. Business development for sustainable charcoal production in Tanzania
4. GHG mitigation and sustainable development through the promotion of
energy efficient cooking in social institutions in Ethiopia
5. Development a consortium for sustainable solutions for post disaster markets
Participants were given restricted amount of time to work with their
case and after-which they presented their work to the "strict" jury.
Embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Video description: Gaia's case video from Ethiopia - how to make
cooking in social institutions more efficient in Ethiopia.
great Gaia Buff tube scarfs. Their solution included some of the same
ideas that Gaia's final solution included. What was very interesting
about this case was that Gaia professionals were actually on the site
in Ethiopia to work with this case. They, for example, used local
artists to create a cartoon how to use this new cooker (reading
challenges limits the use of written information).
And, fortunately, also other teams were awarded for good work with
similar Gaia scarfs!
~ Eye-witness, Tuomo
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