In January, the Haga Initiative, organised a digital roundtable discussion with Nordic stakeholders to discuss the climate effects of Nordic export as part of the Climate Neutral Nordics project. This sub-project focuses on the opportunities and challenges of green exports and their potential climate effects. The fruitful discussions centred around (1) methods for calculating climate effects of export including challenges with costs, data availability and transparency, (2) examples of green export and innovations from Nordic countries and their potential, and (3) potential areas where Nordic collaboration could be scaled up, such as marketing, export financing and methodology.

Some key takeaways from the roundtables:

• The climate effects of exports need to be addressed with an understanding of challenges linked to transparency, accuracy, and reliability. Talking about climate effect, a neutral term, rather than climate benefits is one such way of acknowledging that effects could be positive or negative. 
• The EU’s Green Claims Directive will most likely affect the discussions around how and when climate benefits of export can be applied in promotional work moving forward.
• Costs associated with certain calculation methods for climate effects of export, such as data collection, management, and follow-up, could be costly for companies, especially SMEs. It is important to take into account while at the same time being aware of not compromising integrity and high quality of estimates. 
• There’s a political dimension to promoting the climate benefits of export that should be recognised. The notion of climate benefits of export builds on assumptions about market effects in terms of crowding out or substitution (hypothetical scenarios) and might be counterproductive and increase total emissions levels globally. This needs to be carefully considered. 

Thank you to all our participants for their valuable contributions and insights!