Sustainability in 6G business
Thursday, 4 June 2026, 14:30-16:00, Auditorium
Organizer
- Marja Matinmikko-Blue (Univ.Oulu/6G Flagship, FI)
Motivation and Background
Sustainability has been a driver for 6G research from the very beginning and challenged the community to consider values in addition to traditional performance driven technology development. Companies in the ICT sector are transforming their own and value chain’s operations and businesses towards meeting increasing sustainability reporting requirements in Europe. How sustainability fits in the future 6G era and how to make business from it remain open topics. This panel will address major opportunities and challenges for sustainability in 6G business.
Questions
- What kind of business models could emerge for sustainability in the 6G era?
- What are the major bottlenecks for sustainability in the 6G era?
- What could the communications sector learn from other sectors?
- How to bridge the gaps between academic research, companies, regulators and other stakeholders towards sustainability in 6G business?
Participants
- Marja Matinmikko-Blue (Univ.Oulu/6G Flagship, FI)
- Christoph Schmelz (Nokia, DE)
- Henning Breuer (Media Univ. Applied Sciences, DE)
- Dag Lundén (Ericsson, SE)
Marja Matinmikko-Blue
Marja Matinmikko-Blue is Director of Sustainability and Regulation at 6G Flagship and Research Director of Infotech at the University of Oulu, Finland. She has a Doctor of Science degree in communications engineering and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in industrial engineering and management from the University of Oulu. She has been conducting interdisciplinary research into the technical, business, and regulatory aspects of future mobile communication systems in close collaboration with industry, academia, and regulators for over two decades. She has represented Finland in the global IMT-2030 work in UN based ITU-R to introduce sustainability. She has published 200+ scientific papers and prepared 200+ contributions to regulatory bodies at national, European and international levels.
Christoph Schmelz
Christoph Schmelz is a Principal Research Lead at Nokia in Munich. He is coordinating the Horizon Europe SNS-JU Sustainability Lighthouse project SUSTAIN-6G which aims at defining a framework for integrating 6G technology and vertical use cases towards improving sustainability in all 3 pillars – environmental, societal, and economic. Christoph has more than 20 years of work experience as researcher and project manager in mobile networks at Siemens and Nokia, with the focus areas of network and service automation, network management architecture, mobile network architecture and sustainability. He has been in lead positions in multiple international research projects such as 5G-MoNArch (H2020) and SEMAFOUR (FP7). Christoph holds a Dipl.-Ing. degree from TU München.
Henning Breuer
Henning Breuer consults, researches, and teaches in the fields of innovation management and business psychology. He is a Professor for Business and Media Psychology at Media University of Applied Sciences and founder of UXBerlin – Innovation Consulting. Since 2001, Henning has worked with multinational corporations, SMEs, public organisations, and start-ups, providing consulting on sustainable innovation culture and business models, future scenarios, and ethnographic stakeholder research. Henning co-authored numerous journal and conference publications and books on Sustainable Innovation Cultures, Sustainable Business Model Design, Gamification for Innovators & Entrepreneurs and Values-Based Innovation Management, and. As a visiting researcher and professor, he has worked at the University of Chile (Santiago) and Waseda University (Tokyo). Before, he studied psychology, philosophy, and law in Berlin and Tübingen, and received his PhD in Psychology from the University of Magdeburg.
Dag Lundén
Dag Lundén is a Master Researcher at Ericsson Research with a background as environmental manager and Senior environmental an energy expert within Telia Company. He has more than 40 years of professional experience from the telecommunication industry and has in addition, as part time researcher, authored several well cited scientific articles addressing the ICT sectors energy and environmental impacts and challenges. He joined Ericsson in 2025, now focusing entirely on Energy and Environmental research. Dag holds a M.Sc. in Land Surveying, planning and Development from The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).
