In this second article in our Fornebu Brygge series, we share the business case we have co-created with a global community of key leaders in the New Blue Economy, developing a strategic attraction for the entire destination.

If you missed the first article introducing the project with leading property development company Selvaag, you can read it here.

Fornebu Brygge will become the New Blue Economy destination for industry, venture, startups and, most importantly, the next generation to experience and practise the positive impact they can have in their own future.

A business case for turning the ocean into the world's largest classroom

After several years embarking on a mission to explore the ocean as a learning platform and discover the drivers of the New Blue Economy, our #CampusOcean initiative was founded in 2019. Headquartered at EntrepreneurRock (our tiny island located at the edge of the outer Oslofjord) and supported by the Regional Innovation Program, it quickly became clear that Fornebu Brygge would be the destination to bring #CampusOcean to life.

We set out with 3 clear objectives

• To build a viable business case for #CampusOcean at Fornebu Brygge
• To create an overarching “attraction” that ties the entire destination together creating shared experiences for corporates, startups, researchers, learners and visitors
• To establish a physical location that gives the New Blue ecosystem a destination to flourish from

To achieve these objectives we applied a co-creative METHOD that allowed us to learn from the New Blue ecosystem and transform those insights into a holistic concept grounded on a viable business case.

Campus Ocean is a seagrass movement of ocean explorers, companies, local authorities and investors. Building The New Blue Economy, One Tiny Island At A Time.

METHOD research phase: Connect together, learn from, and build positioning with, the New Blue ecosystem

We started out by identifying the key stakeholders of the New Blue ecosystem:

• Pioneering industry leaders and corporate flagships within Energy, Food & Health, Transportation and new frontier exploration (as we’ve so far only explored and mapped approx 6% of life in the Ocean!).
• Early stage innovators and transformative companies that are approaching the world's most valuable problems with new technologies and a planet-positive impact.
• Researchers and knowledge-clusters driven from academic institutions in Norway (all of whom have dedicated research projects with deep domain expertise), as well as top universities around the world like Stanford and MiT, and networks like Oceanvisions in the US and Canada.
• People formerly known as the audience (aka Aquanauts!). These are folk with any connection to the ocean. In practice this is everyone, but most importantly the next generation - that need hope and see what is possible
• The Seagrass Movement, all people from learners to leaders, caring and working for and with the ocean. This includes big global NGOs like the WWF and the local movements like Marinreparatørene.
• The Ocean itself, the near Oslofjord, and all life in it.

Through actionable research with those at the forefront (as well as the environment around us), we set about identifying the nodes and needs in the New Blue ecosystem. We figured out the missing connections between key stakeholders, and opened up opportunities for how #CampusOcean at Fornebu Brygge could become a place for the community to craft a regenerative future together.

The key insights we discovered were

• Our knowledge of the ocean and how to utilise its potential to solve valuable problems will be significantly accelerated if the entire ecosystem - from corporates to NGOs - are able to learn from each other and collaborate in an aligned, instead of siloed, manner.
• The New Blue ecosystem is being shaped by innovators all over the world. If we can showcase these to the next generation who can imagine their own future in context of the planet’s, a whole new generation of innovators will speed up the rate of progress.
• Seeing is believing. If we open up access to the near (dying) Oslofjord, people can see and share at a local level how new technology and regenerative efforts are trying to save it. This inspires and allows us to imagine how we can save and utilise the entire ocean for the benefit of people and the planet.

METHOD design phase: A viable concept and program based on real insights

We were then able to design a concept and programming for Fornebu Brygge that we believe solves these key needs and provides a compelling business case to do so.

Fornebu Brygge: a place to explore, experience and develop the solutions we need for climate, society and the economy.

We want to immerse the audience in how the ocean can be a source of sufficient and healthy food, that sustainable businesses with new green jobs in blue industries can be developed.

We want to show technology innovation and regeneration of ocean life in practice.

We want to reconnect humans with nature, demonstrating how the ocean can be a source of well-being, physical and mental health, learning, creativity & co-creation of important solutions.

The concept is split into 3 zones: Urban, Venture Wharf and Fjord

We have designed the program - that our architect partners Oslo Works and Haptic have manifested into architectural plans, which will be built by Selvaag through their fully owned company Fornebu Brygge AS - so that everyone associated with Fornebu Brygge contributes, ensuring it reflects the latest in learning and innovation.

Urban: where tomorrow’s sustainable industry pioneers innovate

Urban is designed to be the innovation office of cornerstone companies and tomorrow's industry pioneers, who are aligned with the mission and committed to sustainability within; Food, Energy, Transport, Mobility, Health and Finance.

In Urban, companies or projects with 25-50 employees work in areas specially developed to enable innovation and interaction.

Our research showed us that industrial pioneers (such as Equinor) are seeking new investment areas to explore, develop and demonstrate new green energy systems that can demonstrate positive climate effects. They need access to the next generation of talent, workers and technology to solve this. In scenarios like this, Equinor can share with the public about how the lobster habitat in Rolfsbukta is also an anchoring system of the future for wind farms in the zero-emission society.

Venture Wharf: where the next generation of New Blue solutions are built

Venture Wharf is designed for startups, industry players, researchers and the next generation of talent to create, share and develop new solutions in collaborative environments.

It’s also the place for conferences, cultural events and innovation programs, and an open house for visitors and local residents.

Companies and creators with 1-25 people work here.

Venture Wharf has been co-created with and for its users, and is a place to show what is possible from our oceans - from solutions to carbon capture, generation of energy, sources of protein and medicine and sustainable transportation of people and goods. There are thousands of impact-driven and technology-enabled early stage companies worldwide shaping the New Blue Economy, and Venture Wharf will showcase them.

In developing the Wharf concept, we’ve been inspired by Katapult Ocean; the world's most active early stage ocean investor and award winning accelerator. Their global scope has seen them screen 3000+ ocean impact technology companies, investing in over 50 of them, with the belief that a thriving ocean exists in harmony with economic development.

We have used their 50+ portfolio companies as living test pilots for how we can connect the needs of the industry pioneers to seek talent and new solutions, with the needs of the innovators to seek partners and scale, with the needs of the public to seek learning about what is possible with regenerative efforts and technology innovation.

The Wharf will also be a culinary and social destination. In order for the world to have enough healthy food in the future, we must make better use of the sea’s resources. On a large scale, seaweed & kelp are now grown, harvested and refined for use in food and health products. At Fornebu Brygge you can taste the food, help cultivate hanging gardens outside and learn about how seaweed is one of the most important carbon traps to clean the atmosphere and avoid global temperature rise.

Fjord: where innovators and the public meet, learn and imagine the future

Fjord is the place where all the solutions and learning created in the entire destination and ecosystem are on display to the public and visitors.

Here we expand horizons by inviting people down below the surface into the Oslofjord to experience regenerative life, research and technology out in the near-fjord, in eco-tanks inside the building and through augmented (VR/AR/XR) reality.

Tenants and members of the Urban and Venture Wharf zones will become part of creating the learning experience for visitors to the Fjord, where examples of regenerative techniques, new technology solutions and research projects developed in Urban or Venture Wharf are on show in open laboratories submerged under water.

Fjord will become a hub in the mobilisation of municipalities, research institutions and subject experts contributing to regenerating life in the Oslofjord, showcasing research techniques and technology in an engaging arena where children and young people can learn about the future of the fjord and their own role in it.

A physical and virtual destination

To ensure the best possible experience for businesses and visitors within the limited physical area of Fornebu Brygge throughout the year, day and night, we have also developed the physical programs together with digital solutions. This will enable people from all over the world to both work at, and experience, Fornebu Brygge together without being physically present. We call this the Multi-dimensional Learning Centre, located at Fjord.

So far, all of the world's research has mapped less than 6% of life in the sea. At the same time we are getting increasingly advanced technology and opportunities to collect and create value from large amounts of ocean data.

‍Hub Ocean from Bærum is establishing a world leading platform for global ocean data, which can be visualised to create multidimensional learning experiences about the ocean through digital or physical interfaces for learning experiences in Fjord. The insights from this data can be used to develop new solutions, companies and workplaces, and to mobilise community commitment to collect and share findings or data about the problems we all see in the ocean.

The next article in this series expands in detail about how we have developed the Fjord concept into ‘MetaFjord’ as part of our Unreal Real Estate strategy, extending the dimensions of its experience into AR & VR technologies.