Client: City of Jyväskylä
Date: February 2026
Location: Jyväskylä, Finland
When the City of Jyväskylä appointed a new project manager to work on circular economy, the team arrived with lots of ambition but without the knowledge and concrete action plan needed to turn their ambitions into reality. Bax Innovation stepped in as a strategic partner, introducing the city to the fundamentals of the sharing economy and guiding them all the way through to the launch of their first pilot.
Challenge
Cities looking to transition toward more circular consumption patterns often face the same starting point: a motivated team, but limited familiarity with the ins and outs of the circular economy landscape and how it actually works (i.e what services exist, which actors are involved, and what role a municipality can realistically play). Without this foundation, it is difficult to identify the right opportunities, bring the right stakeholders together, or make the case for investment internally. For Jyväskylä, the challenge was to turn an open brief around circularity into a structured strategy with real initiatives behind it.
Approach
Bax Innovation began by training the city’s project manager on the sharing economy: its structure, the spectrum of services from peer-to-peer sharing to professional rental and sharing stations, the key actors, and the levers available to public authorities. This equipped her to speak credibly on the topic with internal colleagues and external partners.
We then moved into stakeholder engagement and ideation. Together with the city, we facilitated conversations with local SMEs, universities and municipal departments to identify local needs, assets and appetite for collaboration. This generated several concepts for developing Jyväskylä’s sharing offer.
One idea quickly emerged as both compelling and feasible: a rental service for students staying at local universities for a semester or academic year. These students need everyday items for a fixed period, without wanting to buy, transport or dispose of them afterwards. Bax Innovation supported the city and university partners from concept to implementation, helping define the service model, operational requirements and partner roles.
Impact
The project shows what is possible when a city receives the right combination of knowledge transfer, facilitated stakeholder engagement, and hands-on implementation support. Jyväskylä moved from a blank page on circular consumption to a live rental service for students, a concrete, replicable model that addresses a real need while reducing unnecessary consumption and waste. The process also built lasting internal capacity within the city administration to continue developing its sharing economy ambitions.
