On the afternoon of November 18th, the American Chambers of Commerce in the Nordics, in collaboration with Mundus International, presented the Bright Green Summit as a rapid response to the discussions held over the previous two weeks at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.

The Bright Green Summit began with welcoming remarks provided by Rosemary Gallant, the Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs, U.S. Embassy London Regional Senior Commercial Officer for UK, Nordics and Ireland who described the U.S. and Nordics as natural partners in taking positive climate action steps.

Following Ms. Gallant, Per Bolund, Sweden’s Minister for Environment and Climate, and Deputy Prime Minister, called on the participating organizations and Nordic countries to “work collectively to a provide a secure future.” The Deputy Prime Minister continued by urging all attendees to “move out of our comfort zones, think in new ways in regard to our business models, and pioneer the possible.”

Throughout the afternoon, an array of speakers and panelists provided expert presentations and analysis on the opportunities for governments, corporations, business organizations and consumers to integrate positive climate action steps into daily routines, but more importantly, the necessity to do so.

Torsten Lichtenau, Senior Partner at Bain & Company, began by presenting: Beyond COP26: An Action Plan for CEOs. Torsten described the new post-COP26 climate as the “Great Acceleration” and was one of many speakers during the day to highlight the role of “customer-driven desire for change.”

Thomas Becker, CEO of STRING, celebrated renewed U.S. ambitions that are proclaiming “the United States is back.” Increased policy ambitions were addressed by Emilia Hagberg, Senior Sustainability Manager for the Skanska Group, by calling on governments to “raise the bar, and we will deliver.”

Lazlo Sajtos, Affiliated Researcher at Misum, Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), who moderated the infrastructure panel discussion, referenced the need to “cooperate with high ambition companies,” which was elaborated upon by Oskar Norelius, Partner at White Arkitekter, who stated, “we must think in new ways, and that best practices must become business as usual.” This view was later echoed by Dr. Per Sandberg, Senior Advisor at Equinor, when he discussed the need for employers to demonstrate to prospective employees their high ambition in order to attract the best talent.

During the mobility panel discussion, Sami Pirkkala, Secretary General of Finland's National Commission on Sustainable Development, called on participants to look for solutions together. Gustav Sundell, Vice President Strategy and Business Development at Scania, referred to the decade ahead as “the bumpy twenties”, and described an all-in approach to the green transition as “the only sane thing to do.”

Prior to the trade and investment panel discussion, Phil Mackintosh, Chief Economist for NASDAQ, provided a data analysis that outlined the road ahead and stated the difficulty of the reaching new climate action goals may likely fall on investors and corporations and stressed that “innovation will be critical to attract their attention.” Monika Martinsson, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Deedster, called for “more eco, less ego” and Max Åvall, Director of Business Development for Business Sweden, reiterated this message by emphasizing the “need for everyone to collaborate.”

Svein Berg, Managing Director for Nordic Innovation, effectively summarized the goal for the Nordics to “become the most integrated and sustainable region in the world” by referencing collaboration with the U.S., and suggested that the Nordic countries play to “our complementary strengths”. This was echoed by Dr. Val Livada, a Research Affiliate at MIT, who suggested that “collaboration across borders and closer ties” were necessary to transform the goals discussed at COP26 into real achievements.