How does a global company steeped in combustion engine technology navigate the energy transition?

This episode dives into the intricacies of communication and innovation at Wärtsilä, a leader in marine and energy solutions. Meet Jane Jünger, who shares her journey from journalism to leading communications in a tech giant, and now to her role at the University of Bergen. We discuss the vital role of collaboration and transparency in engaging employees and the public about sustainable practices, as well as the importance of multidisciplinary approaches in tackling climate change.

Takeaways:

• Communication is crucial in building trust and understanding around new energy technologies.
• Collaboration across different sectors is essential for driving successful energy transitions.
• Innovation should be owned by all employees, not just top management or R&D departments.
• Engaging local communities in discussions about renewable energy is vital for public acceptance.
• Academia and industry must work together to create relevant educational programs for future jobs.
• Diversity in skills and perspectives can lead to more effective problem-solving in energy transition projects.

Wärtsilä

University of Bergen

Jane Jünger

Stories for the Future

How does a big global company, with their core technology being a combustion engine, manage the energy transition?

How do they communicate about their efforts towards a net zero future to build trust and excitement about their ongoing innovation, both internally and to the general public?

This, along with a better understanding of how academia is changing to better meet the needs of the future, is what we will dive into in today's episode. Welcome to Stories for the Future. This is a podcast that aims to make you feel excited and hopeful about amazing possibilities ahead of us.

My name is Veslimøy Klavenes-Berge and I'm on a mission to discover how we can all live good lives, have interesting jobs, take care of our planet, and look after everyone who lives here. I believe that everyday people have the power to shape the future. Together we can create a world that we're all excited about.

Join me on this journey as we explore these ideas. And remember, the future is in our hands and I'm confident we can make it really good. My guest today is Jane Jünger.

With her background as a journalist, a museum's director and head of marketing and communication for both the National Theatre in Bergen, Norway and Wärtsilä, Norway, a huge global tech company. She so definitely has the expertise to talk about today's topic.

We will talk a lot about her and Varzila's approach to communication, innovation and collaboration.

And even though Jana has now left Vatsila for a role at the University of Bergen, her old company welcomes her sharing about their transition journey and that we are really grateful for. There's so much great stuff here, so I will just hand it over to myself and Janne. I really hope you enjoy it.

I think you will, because there's so much to learn from this one. Welcome, Janne. It's so great to have you on the podcast finally.

Thank you so much. I'm looking forward.

That is so good. Today you work at the University of Bergen. That is my old university and feels a little bit like home. So we will talk more about that later.

But first, I'm really, really curious. When you started studying, was this the area of work that you imagined that you would end up in? Because I suspect maybe not.

When I was a child, I had two different plans in my life. I wanted to be a journalist and I wanted to work at the museum. So I ended up taking a degree in mass communication and anthropology.

So I started out as a journalist and I was very lucky. Worked in both radio and newspaper for 10 years.

And then I said to myself, I really, really wanted to be working on museum so that was also part of the plan. And I was so lucky. I got a position as director for the regional museum in Sundland, where I live, I live at Stow.

And that was also 10 great years I had. 10 years as a journalist, 10 years as a museum director. And now the last 10 years I have worked as a communication manager for Wachtsela in Norway.

They have four division in Norway. I can come back to that.

But I also, in parallel with the journalist dream and the museum dream, also been a part of when I was young, Natur and Umdan, that's kind of a huge NGO for climate change and people that are very interested in that. And they also been reading a lot and got more and more involved in the issues of climate change.

And how can I, how can I be a part of this, to contribute to, in a way, do something good? And I didn't know where I could, I could do that.

So when I got the position at vla, I was leading the communication, but I was also part of the innovation group in the company. So.

And I knew that the company would change purpose the year that I started and that they wanted to do a lot of innovation connected to green transition.

So that was in a way what I was very triggered by to take the position because I knew that there would be work to do when it comes to transform the company to do in new ways.

Yeah, you're really a great example of somebody making career changes like quite radical ones. That is, that is really inspiring. And that is also a lot about what this podcast has been about in the past. So really interesting.

We will talk a lot about Varcella in this episode, because this episode will focus on to see how a company can go through a major transition.

And this is related to your years at Vatzila, which is a global leader in innovative marine and energy technologies, having transitioned from a traditional engine and power plant manufacturer to a company focused on sustainable and renewable energy solutions. Is that correct? Did I say that in the right way?

Is that you have to kind of go back and tell us what is vla, what are the product services, what are the typical clients?

Vacilla is a Finnish global company and Vacilla in Norway have four divisions. The originally Vacla company in Norway is Vaclav Norway, who has their head office at in Bermlu, an island on the west coast of Norway.

And there was kind of a very important breakthrough in engine technology in the Nordic. So it allowed fishermen, for example, to come back to their families pasture in the evening.

Because before, you know, you had to sail or you have to row. But what the engine was doing for people is that they could come back in the evening. The family could have their father with them or the brother.

So it's been kind of. The brand was very important along the Norwegian coast. So Ver bought Wickman Co.

In 80s, continued to make the engine for some years, but then they decided to outsource the engine production. But still there is a very vital service department there that do service on vessels, the propulsion systems, they do engineering.

And we also, at Stort, where I live, have the electrification professionals because Werzel started very, very early to electrify vessels using battery technology, fully electric or hybrid, or retrofit for hybrid offshore supply vessels and ferries and speedboats for passengers. So that has been a journey that Verza has been on in Norway.

And on top of that they also have a gas solution company in Ask and exhaust gas handling and now the testing solutions for carbon capture on ships in Moss and in Drummen you have the division for digitalization systems on the bridge. So it's quite different operations in Norway. So it's been really exciting to be a part of that.

Verdict is an engine producer and the engine has gone from, you know, heavy fuel oil to diesel. And there was a big transition to gas to lng. And when you do LNG in vessels, you can go down 20% of the emissions, but you can go further.

So LNG won't take you the whole way to zero. So.

And what the company learned is that actually they can earn money on green technology. I think they had in the 19th done over 300 NOx rebuilds of engines and that they had made. I think it's 100 million Norwegian kroner on that.

So actually that was good business. Green technology can be good business and they can help the customers dealing with a problem that is a stronger regulation.

And also that led to other innovation like going into hybridization of vessel, going into battery technology, going into total electrification.

So in a way One thing led to the other and the company in Norway had already an experience that green technology was important for the customer and that they actually could earn money on that.

And they also have different solution for low loss concepts that how can they energy optimize the vessel for the customer so that they could do smoother operations with less fuel. And then they're of course with save money on the fuel. If you had could peak shave the energy consumption so that there will be more stable load.

So there was a lot of refining of how you used your energy in better ways.

I think little by little led to the understanding that actually green technology is of course good for the planet, but it's also a possibility for the better business.

Yeah.

Would you say that Vatsilla and similar companies also providing products and services to for instance energy, the energy sector, that you were driving the change or is it more like such companies are catering to the willingness from the customer to change? Would you say, and you have said a little bit about the kind of the innovation spirit in Vatsilla, how is that also contributing?

I think that the innovation spirit in Wetzel is very high and it's on the agenda and. But it couldn't be possible. I think this is what I call a three party party.

Yeah.

Because this is happening and Norway is a front runner.

We have to be honest that the Nordic countries and especially Norway when it comes to shipping and green shipping has been kind of a laboratorium for new green solutions and it. And what is happening here that we have a government that's willing to fund.

We have good funding schemes like Innova and we have Forsnigsrode, the Norwegian Research Council. And of course you also have the EU possibilities for funding.

But also the third, the third important player in this party is the forward leaning customers and I think the long, long relationship I have to name drop the customers that has been leading the way for many, many years. That is a.

This week on Bamru and AIDS week and WR go way back and they have so many projects together over decades and then they know each other, they trust each other and Adesweek is willing to take a risk when it comes to test and pilot new technology. So that's also a very important part of it.

I think you can have a technology provider saying that hey, we have this great technology, it will help you to reduce your CO2 footprint. And the ship owner could say, hey, that's great but I don't have the money to invest.

And then you have the Norwegian funding schemes that allow you to take the risk and what Ada Sweek and the other frontrunners when it comes to ship owners are doing is we should applaud it and we should lift them up because they also take economical risk when they do that. So this couldn't happen without all the three players collaborating together and taking risks. Yeah, sharing risk.

Right.

When I'm talking about building bridges and bursting bubbles in the energies transition, I think one word is more important than almost all others and that it's communication. And that is exactly what you have been working with.

So how did you approach the challenge of communicating and maybe especially the complex technical solutions and your mission towards a renewable energy future to the general public?

Because I see that so often there's a lack of this communication and everybody inside the company knows that they're doing a lot of great stuff, but it doesn't reach the general public. So how did you approach that challenge?

I always thought about communication as something you have to do in three different phases. Because the people who know this technology is the employees of Werzela when I worked in Versla.

So they are the experts and they are the ones who need to own the change, to be the leader of the change and the owners. And that's the people who's going to implement the new technology in vessels and that's going really to work with this.

So what I have been part of is different innovation project dealing with electrification, also autonomous crossing and if of a ferry called Folgerfon and also in the latest year future fuels testing ammonia as a fuel for combustion engine. So that's been many different innovations that we need to communicate.

So what I always have been very concerned about is that never see innovation as something the top management is doing or someone in R and D. Innovation is something that the whole company need to own together.

And so we have been doing a lot of internal communication like we have been doing deck talks, decarbonization talks with the employees, tech talk, technical talks that we really explain and try to engage.

Because if you test the future fuel like ammonia in a combustion engine, like we do on Heyane, on Stod, is in the Sustainable Energy Catapult center, it is our engine experts that need to be part of it, that actually need to do the tests and they will be the first in the world that actually has the knowledge on our hands how it is to operate and combustion engine on ammonia and they have to take care of the safety. That's of course very, very high on the agenda. So we have to invite all the employees into the Innovation projects, in a way.

So when we start communicating externally, they. They are part of it and they own it.

Because it's also very important to externally, locally, in the local newspapers and in the regional newspapers, because there can be rumors, people say that, wow, what are you actually doing there at this test center? Isn't ammonia very dangerous? It's toxic. Do they have hydrogen up there that can explode?

There's a lot of concerns about new energy sources that you don't. You know how to deal with gasoline. You do it every day, you put it in your car.

You know how to charge your electrical vehicle or bike or something that's no commodity, know how to do that. But you know, people will always be concerned when it comes to handling renewable energy or new energy sources.

So when you start to communicate externally, you have to not only think about national press or global press. I think the local press is very, very important because that's where it's happening in the local communities.

That's where you will produce the renewable energy like hydrogen, and that's where you're going to bunker it. And that's operations that need to be very safe.

They need to understand the procedures and they need to be very secure that this is done in a good way.

And also, one of my thoughts has been that if the employees own this story, then when their neighbors say, I read in the local newspaper that you do all these tests on, isn't that dangerous? Then they will be the best ambassadors and they will say, no, it's totally secure, because we are very concerned with safety.

I know the process, I know the technology, and I can explain it to you. So they are the best ambassadors you can ever have for new technology.

And then, of course, you need also to concern about national media like the mainstream media, because you can always get very interesting articles in the Technical Week magazines and the other technical journals, but that's only for engineers. You know, engineer in Norway is reading the Technical Week magazine of Norway, and they are very interested in this.

But that's not for your grandmother or your neighbor. So you need to, in a way, work with their mainstream media.

You need to get Norwegian broadcasting on board, or you need to get big national mainstream media, because then it's. Then it's part of the common discussion. And that's hard.

That's the hardest part, to get this on the national agenda and to actually pave the way for the new fuels to come. And also, of course, you need to work globally because this is of interest to the global community.

And when you look at Japan they are very interested in ammonia as a fuel.

And what Vatzler also do that we didn't talk about so much is that they use their combustion technology because the core of the vacilla technology is the combustion engine. And you use it to get ship, to move ships forward, but you can also use it in a power plant. So.

And Vatzler has a huge energy division and when you where you don't have as in Norway we have been so lucky. We have hydropower as our main energy source for electricity in our houses.

But where you don't have that, you used to find alternative energy production. So power plants are also in the portfolio of Lharzla, using a combustion engine to make energy.

So of course you need to communicate globally to show where are you and what can be done and how is this possible to implement in other sectors and parts of the world. Yeah, so communication is very, very important in the transition we are doing. But you have to think about that.

You have to communicate in different levels and to different part of the population and the national population, the regional, the local and of course the global. So yeah, that's how I'm thinking.

It's a big challenge. Really important and really interesting as well.

I would think that job that you had, because there's so many levels, as you say, and also what I was thinking about, how to make it interesting enough, but also simplify it so that it reaches a bigger audience. Yes, you're really hard. I can't imagine.

Yes, it's hard. And it's also hard to get the mainstream media interesting in that because they always want a new happening. That's.

We can.

So you cannot make a story to say that, hey, we're doing ammonia testing and we do. We are very concerned about security here and we're doing it in the processes we do.

So you have to actually, in a way give them the new stories that this is happening, have to build it. And that's very different from the communication vessel I used to have, because then before the last 10 years, you could, you know, refine an engine.

You can refine your technology in another way. And then you could say, hey, we made this great engine and of course this was great.

And they had developed it to be much better than the last engine they would put on the market. But that is developing technology as you go to refine it in a way.

And then you can go to your test center and you can test and you can go in the market and say, hey, look at us, we have this great engine now. But now we're communicating in a quite different way because we have.

Verte has now been saying to the public that actually we want to test, we want to test ammonia, we want to test hydrogen, we have tested methanol, we have tested different future fuels and we want to discuss with the markets and we want to learn about the fuels, how they behave and we don't have all the answers.

And that's another, that's a totally different way to communicate with the market that you have done before because then you are the leading provider of technology and you are saying that this is the best. Now you have a more humble approach to say that we're actually testing and testing means that you don't know all the answers.

Exactly.

And everyone's testing and everyone in this field is now in the same situation because this is new technology, securing new technology for the future and we are all in the same boat and it's not possible to do without good collaboration with the customers.

So you have to put up kind of collaboration projects, you have to secure funding and if you have research funding from the Research Council, you have to be open about the results. You don't have to give away your inner secrets in a way, but you have, you have to be communicating what's happening here.

So that's also, I think it's a new way of communicating with the world.

Yeah, true. So interesting. Now we have to move a little bit back to your current role at university.

First of all, what is it that you do in that role, like your day to day work?

I have a new role that's called Senior Advisor for Green Regional Transition. So it is the county of Westland that has provided the funding for this position. But I am placed at the University of Bergen.

I actually work with the Innovation department there, Research and Innovation department. And this is a quite new role. No one has been in this position before, so I'm going to in a way create it.

But my main task is to work very close with the EU systems and what's happening in Europe and what's the EU agenda when it comes to innovation, research, green transition and also the collaboration or the co operation of the academia and the industry because we are going to move fast now. We don't have the time to in a way be doing things in silos.

I think maybe we have, even in wr, even everywhere you look you can see that people have been working and securing their own silos and of course they are on top of what they're doing there and they know their work and they're very good at it and they are the best. But now we need to have a more holistic approach.

So I work also very close to something called Groenregion Westland or the green region of Westland county. Who's also very in front of the green transition when it comes to how a county is dealing with their own transition.

Because you have so many different regions in the county that also have their way forward where.

Because you see all this like wahr SLA at Bamloo, the biggest employer and and has been there for 120 years and they are doing this transition and the whole local community need to go with because the suppliers that delivers into the big. You can call it the big locomotive of the industry.

There's suppliers that need these big companies to succeed in the transition because if not they will all go down. So.

So what I'm doing is that I working towards the different regions, towards the industry and try to see how can we work closer the academia and the industry in the transition.

Yeah, how do you see that role of academia in that in the energy transition? And do you think that you have a lot of different. What should we call it? Leverage points? Places where you can reach the industry.

Ocean technology in Westland County. And of course there are many very good cluster organizations in different sectors.

You will have them for health, you will have them for shipping, you will have them for fish farming or you.

So they are very important for the industry to meet, go together, collaborate and also discuss what's the challenge, where are we today, where do we need to go? And I think that the academia are present there, but they could be even more present. They could engage more in that.

But I also think that the Norwegian research institutions are very important and do actually play a very important role in the transition because you have so many researchers that is doing the ground research when it comes to carbon capture, when it comes to hydrogen and as a renewable energy. So there is a very close connection today.

But it can be closer and it can be more holistic, I think because as I said, we don't have much time and we shouldn't be afraid of working together. Maybe academia has been afraid that your research is free, your thought is free.

You shouldn't be too involved with the industry because then they can make influence you. And I totally agree with that.

But you should also have very good collaboration projects that you actually go for goals that would be important for the industry to reach the next step in the technology transformation towards greener technologies. And I think that, you know, traditionally Educational institution has passed on their knowledge to the students who then applies it in the industry.

They go out there like you have done and I have done. I also studied at the university in Bargain and I used my knowledge and worked for the industry.

But I think that today it could be faster in a way approach that teaching science could also be done together with industry. That we have a closer relationship when it comes to bachelor thesis or master thesis and PhD.

And they can have internships and they can also use the test facilities of the industry or the clusters. Of course the university also have to have their own infrastructure and testing facilities and laboratories.

But it can also be be a joint use when the industry have good test facilities. And there's a lot of different subjects that need to go.

We need engineering, we need computer science, chemistry, physics, but also we need the economics here, we need the law students, we need the sociology to see. Because there's a lot of resistance in people. Everyone in Norway know about that. People don't want windmills all over the mountains.

And there's a lot of anti demonstration for wind power. And we need the sociologists or philosophers to see what's happening here with people.

How can we communicate better, how can we do the transition better? And you also, when you do carbon capture, the first facilities is now starting to.

To be ready for production in a way, if you can call it a production. And then you need to do contracting in total new ways. We don't have these contracts, so we. So we need the people who.

Who put up the contracts and know the the law behind it. They need new skills. There's a lot of innovation here.

There's a lot of new things coming that we really, really need to work together on to secure that the society is ready to implement all the new ways of implementing of course renewable energy, but also use it as a commodity in the society.

A big question for me is how the universities and the educational institutions are. How dynamic are day when it comes to giving the right education at that moment in time.

Because thinking back to my own university days, it was very much like in the back of everyone's head that okay, you study petroleum geophysics, you will go into oil and gas. And there was a lot of collaboration with oil and gas companies for thesis and things like that.

So how good are the universities at changing the curriculum perhaps? And that could be geoscience, it could be engineering, it could be economics. Absolutely economics. Do you think they're a little bit too static still?

I think there's happening a lot.

I've been so impressed because what I have used the last three months on when I started in this new job is to get to learn the University of Barrage and of course the different departments.

And I'm so impressed by the understanding they have that they need to change and they need to serve the society in good ways and that they need to change their subject that you can actually because, you know, if you take a bachelor or master, you, your degree would. You could choose from many different subjects.

And when I look at the different subject they offer, if you go to geography they, they offer totally new subjects there now on how to plan for future transition, how to do industrial symbios. Symbiosis. And so there's a lot of focus on it, I think.

But the bridge we need to build is that actually do the society need what the university have to offer and do the industry actually need what the university has to offer and also the counties and I think the local municipalities. So I think there's a lot to do.

But when I look at the portfolio of the kind of subject they offer for the young people that studies there today, that's really impressive. But I don't think it's very known.

They also have a problem of communicating this out and is it totally known by the industry that you actually can go and you know, if you have a bachelor, you worked for some years, you could take a master in renewable energy, for example or you could, you know. So I think that lifelong learning is very important when it comes to industry and industry collaboration because it's.

I also think that we have to think about learning in new ways. When you studied, you were fit for your. What you were going to do in the oil industry.

But you also, if you, if you had been working there today, you would have needed more input, you would have needed to. To broaden your. Yeah. Knowledge. So I think that for the future we have to think a little different.

We have to maybe study some work a little, go back and study. Maybe the industry should be better to say hey, we need this competence.

Why don't we take 10 people, offer best engineers and put them on the school bench. So I think that's also important part of it.

And as I mentioned before, I really believe in creating this living laboratories that also the industry and the academia is part of the same, maybe can use the same testing facilities. I think that's one of the answer.

And also diversity to look at the diversity of teams that you're building in the industry that engineers think in one way if you bother because I'm not An engineer. And I have to be honest that when I was at the high school, I didn't follow very much the natural science class. My mind was elsewhere.

It was boys and it was parties. I took music as my main subject, so I wasn't quite there. But still I can be and play a role in an innovation project that's very technical.

So we need different skills and diversity of skills in the industry setup as well.

Yes, I think your journey is again, I have to say, such a great example. And I think that like we need more 40, 50 years old into the universities that you can think that, okay, I'm 25.

It's not like you're finished and you're done studying, but you can go back as 30 or 40 or 50 and reskill.

So then before we wrap up, and this is my last question, very much related to this, if you were a student today or someone upskilling or reskilling at a later stage, where would you start if the aim was to have a positive impact on the future?

I think you need to go back to your core. What's your core interest? What can you do? Because that's what I have been working on in Vacla. What's the core technology of Vacla?

It's combustion technology and everything that's comply to that, that broaden the system of combustion and to be more sustainable. Vats shouldn't go to produce technology to, you know, sun or to say to other. Because they know combustion engines and the technology at their heart.

So.

And that's why we've been working on future fuels and electrifying, because you can see electrification and the combustion, it's part of the same thing. You will have combustion technology, battery technology in the same vessel in the future.

I always very important for me to say you shouldn't go for something you don't know. So when I wanted to do something with sustainability to climate, what. What can I do? Because communication is what I can do.

Working as a journalist, working in a museum, it's all about telling stories. It's all about finding narratives that I want to bring out to the world. It's all about being good at, in a way, translating what is happening.

When you're a journalist, I think you are a translator. You go to this meeting at the local municipality and you translate what's happening there to the rest of the community through the local newspaper.

So I think that my role has been to be a translator of what's happening with green technology and bring it out there to people so that's that's the core of my skills. That's what I have been doing my whole life and that's what I'm doing today.

I think I can be a translator of how the industry thinks and how they work and bring it back to the academia and to the county. This is their language, this is how they think, this is how they speak. And the academia speaks in another language. But we could.

That could fit if we only learn to understand each other. And of course they do. But they could. They could do more projects together.

They could be more understanding what the different actors are saying or what they need in an innovation project. If the university say, we can test this and this. Can you come with us for an innovation project?

But you have to pay 1 million Norwegian kroner to be part of the project. And the industry said, no, that's not inner core. That's not exactly what we need for in our R and D plan now.

But if we tweak it a little, it could be exactly what we needed and then we could work together in a good. So I think that if anyone's want to do something to be a part of the transition we're just in the middle of.

I think they should ask themselves, how can I? Maybe I'm an engineer type, maybe I could take an education that could bring me to work with renewable energy or something.

Or maybe I'm a philosopher type. So could I follow that path of my interest, but still do research and be a part of the broader discussions?

Or if I am a law type, there's so many new things coming. Regulations, you know, or if I really like to plan and to be a part of how your community is set up. Yes, of course. We need your.

So I think that you shouldn't go to be an engineer because you want to do something good for the world. If you're not the engineer type, if you don't have that as a core of your personality.

So the essence is that we need all skills and all types of people.

We need a holistic approach on this.

We need people who work in the NGOs, we need people who work in the cluster organization, we need people who work in the counties and we need people who work in the bureaucracy. We need people who work in the industry. Everyone has to be doing this together. So we need different kind of skills to succeed.

And that's a really good thing, I think.

Yes.

So every job is a climate job, as they say. You can make any job into something which is leading us to. To the future.

Yes. And What I really learned I've been working with in great projects like the SEEDS initiative.

I could speak of that in a whole in an own podcast alone because it's been so great working with these Nordic companies there.

We put together big Nordic players like Equinor, AKA Solution, the FTS who is in Norway known as the boat to Denmark, and the Greek ship owner and Machlas. And what I learned there is that we actually think that we know so much about each other.

We think that we know Equinox in and out and we think that we know Arche Solution. They can construct all these big things that fantastic things that you can put out in the North Sea.

And Equinor know all the operational things that they can put up this gas or oil or whatever. And we know that the FDS has great passenger boats and logistics and transport on sea and land.

And Greek is also as a big ship owner and vessel that can provide the technology to, to move all these vessels forward. But when you start talking to each other, we actually don't speak the same language because everyone is in their silo and everyone is in their box.

And so when we started the project, we wanted to find the fastest route to zero mission. And we said five to seven years and we were arguing, we were discussing, we were laughing, but we were also, no, this is not working.

We don't understand each other. We, we so different. But in the end we, we managed to, to start to say, hey, is that how you're thinking? Is that how a ship owner thinking?

Or is that how an energy producer actually thinks? Or is this what you can do in AR solution? Wow, what you can do is so great. You can, you can actually construct everything.

So what we understood there is that we think we know, but we actually don't know and we don't speak the same language.

But when we started to do that, we could create an offshore hub for clean fuel production of offshore wind, made it into hydrogen to ammonia, and then we could bunker it, store it and bunker it offshore. And actually this was thing that all this company together could do in five to seven years if we had the money.

But then we could transition our energy production and consumption very fast.

So by combining technology, combining knowledge and put our strains together and talk together, that actually we can do so much by just we don't need to invent the coolest thing in the world.

So all the projects, in a way, came out of that collaboration environment that we managed to make.

And that's why what I very much believe in is that collaboration is the key to the transition, because there's so many solution skills, technology minds, innovative thoughts out there, but we need to collaborate, to put it together, to actually see the whole pictures.

Yeah.

That's why I am very fascinating of trying to put different environments and different people together to. Because they have. They bring in new perspectives. Because when we only work in our silos, we.

We miss so many perspectives and so many different ways of thinking. And it can be challenging.

Of course, it can be very challenging to do that because everyone has their pride in what they're doing and they say, hey, what about me? I'm actually a specialist here, I know this, I've done it for 20 years and I'm the best you can find when it comes to this and this.

And that's very hard. And that's the communication issue. I find most challenging is to say, hey, we need you, we need you in the future, we need your competence.

But it will be a different. You won't be able to do the same.

Exactly.

And that's what all just transition thoughts is about. That has been very important for me, and I think of it a lot, that we need to secure the transition for the workforce.

Because if not, you will have the opinion against what you want to do.

Exactly.

And if we don't say it like that, like the way that you said it, we just get it really hard defensiveness from the whole workforce because they feel forced or they feel them. That they're threatened. So I think you're so right. And I also think you're right in that we have to have a separate episode about that seed project.

Really.

Then I can bring. Then I can bring a friend or colleague as well, because I can bring the technical expertise on. Yeah, yeah.

Because I think projects like that should be replicated and like the keywords here are communication, collaboration. And what was the last one I thought about? Yeah, Lifelong learning that like all the. All the steps, we need to have all those in place.

If people want to reach out to you and with ideas or questions or anything, just want to connect, what is the best place to do that? Is that LinkedIn?

Yes. They can do that. Yeah. Connect on LinkedIn. I would love that.

Yes. And so I will Put that link in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time. I think this has been really, really interesting.

And as I said, we need to have a follow up because you have to share more about that seed project. And good luck in everything that you're doing at the University of Bergen. I'm paying close attention. So, yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you so much. And I will bring my technical expert with me. So that will be to talk about seats as well. And that will be really nice. We're looking forward.

Perfect. And that's a wrap.

As mentioned so many times during this conversation, I believe the key points here are communication on so many levels, it's collaboration and working across silos, and its openness and willingness to keep learning all through our careers.

If you enjoyed this episode, please help me spread the word by sharing it with others who might benefit, of course, by subscribing to the podcast and maybe even if you feel really inspired, put in a review and tell me what you think. I really appreciate that and I realize I haven't been very good at asking for it. So there you go. Some calls to action for until we meet again.

Thanks for tuning in. I will be back soon.