The world is experiencing an unpresented health, social, and economic crisis situation with tourism reported to be one of the most severely hit sectors (UNWTO, 2020). COVID-19 pandemic is often discussed as an imposed pause of humanity’s frantic growth and an opportunity to reflect on our choices and future paths, an invitation to tourists and the industry to reconsider their options and adopt more sustainable practices in the after COVID-19 era (Gretzel et al., 2020; Ioannides and Gyimóthy, 2020) a view shared also by UNWTO claiming that “sustainability should be the new normal” in the after covid era (https://www.unwto.org/covid-19-oneplanet-responsible-recovery).. COVID-19 crisis although reduced or even eliminated tourism and travel opportunities for certain periods, it has also contributed to the first in history reduction in greenhouse gas emissions related to reduced travels and industrial production (Gössling et al., 2020). As the world is now focusing in mitigating the adverse impacts of the pandemic and bringing economy and tourism ‘back to business’, there are also alarming voices that measures taken in the pressure of emergency to combat economic recession from COVID-19 should not contradict or jeopardise with long-term sustainability goals and SDGs should not be overlooked or neglected (Hall et al., 2020). Besides the problems created, crises can be a disruption leading to innovations. It is a period of transition and innovation to combat a rapid crisis such as the pandemic while some of these actions and innovations, if adjusted adequately, can be useful in the long run to combat the less visible slow crisis like climate change and other sustainability challenges. In this research we look on knowledge and experience generated during the pandemic crisis to attain a more sustainable development of tourism now but very importantly in the “new normal” after the crisis. We look onto how companies in Dalarna and Gotland have responded to the pandemic so far and how they work with sustainability and climate change. In this presentation I want to explore the idea of cocreating knowledge with companies. How can we engage companies? What is relevant research for them? How can we help them towards a transformational approach to embrace sustainability?