On May 19 the 8th Business Forum Greece-Sweden took place in Athens jointly organised by the Hellenic Swedish Chamber of Commerce and the Embassy of Sweden in Athens. The key theme of the Forum was the emergence of the “ New Business Environment”On May 19 the 8th Business Forum Greece-Sweden took place in Athens jointly organised by the Hellenic Swedish Chamber of Commerce and the Embassy of Sweden in Athens. The key theme of the Forum was the emergence of the “ New Business Environment”. Following an invitation by the organisers the IENE, from the start, assisted with the preparation of part the programme which dealt with the energy, sustainability and the climate agenda.
Welcome remarks were contributed by the President of the Hellenic-Swedish Chamber of Commerce, Ms.Rania Patsiopoulou and by HE Johan Borgstam, Ambassador of Sweden in Greece.
The Secretary General of the IENE, Costas Theofylactos was the Expert Panel Moderator of the Session on, “ Charging the Future” which dealt with sustainable energy solutions and electrification. Speakers included Lars Martensson, from Volvo Trucks, who spoke on “ Elecrification in Europe as an Industry Transformation”, Michael Chatzigakis, CEO of Hexicon Power who talked on Floating Offshore Wind installations, and Dr.Costas Balaras, Research Director of the Institute for Environmental Reasearch & Sustainable Development at the National Observatory Athens (NOA), who discussed sustainable solutions for the built environment.
Between them the above speakers discussed climate change and sustainability policies which will drive business models and lead to new product development. Among others they pointed out that governments will act with more urgency to diversify their energy resources in order to improve energy security and sustainability while corporations will create value chains that are net zero, nature positive, and equitable for all, with access to “green materials” being crucial ( i.e Electric vehicles,Hydrogen applications,construction,travel and tourism)
Another session examined “ Geopolitics and Business - the Changing Geopolitical Scene and New Patterns in Supply Chains”. The Prime Minister’s energy advisor, Mr. Nick Tsafos and the Director General of the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research ( IOBE), Professor Nikos Vettas were the two keynote speakers who between them covered climate change,the pandemic fallout, logistics and supply chain crisis, the war and the energy crisis and defences implications. The key question posed was as to how will corporations react to these challenges and opportunities. Other issues discussed included the expansive interference in business decisions by governments and how they lead to increased costs and how markets adjust to all that.
The last session of this well attended event covered the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace of the future. According to the speakers AI is set to impact work in 3 major ways: human to machine interaction;smart process automation; and advanced analytics.
