Sweden's leading global companies and the Swedish Prime Minister support Sweden's bid

Sweden's leading global companies and the Swedish Prime Minister support Sweden's bid to host its first-ever Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2026.

Swedish global companies representing industries such as energy, sustainable transportation, telecommunications, renewable building materials and robotics are supporting the Stockholm Åre bid for the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. These companies employ over 860,000 people between them and have a combined market capitalisation of over SEK 1.61 trillion [USD $161 billion].

Sweden has the highest number of per capita exports in the world. The nation’s annual investment in research and development as a proportion of GDP is the highest in the European Union.

Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven acknowledges the value of corporate support for sport as well as the Stockholm Åre bid. He said, "I think that this strong support from Swedish industry is a sign of the Swedish approach. That is, we do things together."

"The State does its part – but the business community also plays a very important part. This support plays a big role and for that, I’d like to praise the business community because it takes a great responsibility in this."

Jacob Wallenberg and Marcus Wallenberg, Chair and deputy Chair of Investor AB – Sweden’s largest industrial holding company and the major shareholder in global companies such as Ericsson, ABB, and Permobil – has spoken out to expressly back the 2026 bid, emphasising the importance of promoting sustainable practices on a major scale.

"It’s important for companies to underline how committed they are to sport," Jacob and Marcus explains. "The positive work by the IOC with their reform programmes, Olympic Agenda 2020 and The New Norm, highlight the concept of sustainability and inclusion, and this fits very well with modern business today."

"So, for us, from a business point of view, to be able to push for Stockholm Åre 2026’s new sustainability and innovation vision is something we’re really engaged in," says Marcus Wallenberg.

For a nation of its size, Sweden is the birthplace of an incredible number of global brands. This is due to a history of entrepreneurism, a culture of innovation and one of the most digitally connected countries on the planet.

‘Made in Sweden’ has been a world-leading quality guarantee for decades, and just happens to be the slogan of the Stockholm Åre 2026 bid - it stands for "quality you can count on with people you can trust."

Many companies in Sweden are longstanding sponsors, commercial partners, and fans of winter sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Movements. Sweden tops the European Commission’s Innovation Union Scoreboard and ranked third in the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Global Innovation Index. Sweden also ranks ninth in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.

Stockholm Åre 2026’s vision is to create the most sustainable Winter Games model in history, not only for the 2026 Winter Games for as a standard for years to come.

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