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| Blue berries are natures own super food! |
Natural resources and nature’s well-being effects are providing new opportunities for well-being business activities. Nature may be a part of one’s everyday life and the services one uses, but we can always develop new service concepts, which incorporate the intangible values of nature in supporting man’s well-being. Green well-being is made up of a mix of different services and technologies and environmental solutions to support these services.
The activities that make use of nature can be classified in different ways, although green health services make up most of them today. The principle idea is that these services aim to improve our well-being at different stages of life. These can also be experience-, adventure- or tourism services where people find their way spontaneously. Green care services include nature care services, which are often rehabilitation and social services offered by the public sector.
Nature is a field of great know-how in Finland and also in global markets. In the future it will be very important to be conscious of the well-being effects of product and service concepts. Developing trends and phenomenon can form the base for developing a nature based well-being business. For example, we all know that greenness in the cities promotes our health and we are even ready to pay for it.
New nature based possibilities will emerge when we can cross the lines in different fields of operation in order to find solutions. Nature-based experiences appealing to multiple senses are offered by spas and beauty salons already. Different nature schools are good examples of the creation of products, such as well-being services, from well-being effects. Also Finnish forests are full of business opportunities. In addition to the wood industry we can create products related to the picking of e.g. berries, mushrooms and also hunting game animals. As the main export, lingonberries and blueberries are utilized only up to 2-10%, and the rest is left in the forests to rot. It can be said that blueberry is a real superfood, from which products can be produced and promoted. Also the antioxidants and vitamins of the e.g. sea buckthorn and artic cloudberry are already used in fighting wrinkles. This is something we Finns should invest even more in.
Nowadays the natural resources are used primary as raw materials. However, developing the service and production processes we can create new businesses in experience economy and in well-being. Social and technical innovations create new opportunities to electrical, flexible and mobile services and even to exports.
Pia Lindroos
Lecturer, Beauty Management, TUAS
Source: Sitra 2013. Luonnonlukutaito. Luo liiketoimintaa vihreästä hyvinvoinnista. (PDF)
