“Sustainable thinking has been included in our daily operations since the very beginning of Moominworld over 30 years ago. Our values are family friendliness, non-violence, safety, adventure, ecology, and tolerance”, says Ann-Karin Koskinen, Marketing director of Moominworld. 

“We wanted to create a theme park, which is as authentic as possible and fits well into its surroundings. We are situated in Naantali, a small wooden town on the West Coast of Finland. We feel that it's important that Moominworld replicates the small wooden town atmosphere that Naantali has. We encourage our visitors to use other local tourism services while visiting us, and of course to reach us by public transport. Also, social responsibility is important for us. As Moominworld is open only during the summer, we hire mostly young people. We do our best to provide them best possible work experience. Of course, we value our immediate surroundings too: for example, we have made recycling easy for our clients and do inform them how to avoid food waste. 

We welcome visitors from all over the world and many of them are families with little children, so it is important to provide them not only memorable visitor experience, but also offer a possibility to learn new things and way of thinking, for example, through our Moomin theatre performances”, adds Koskinen. 

Moominworld website

”The Suomenlinna Sea Fortress is an UNESCO World Heritage Site so for us it is obviously important to preserve it also for the future generations”, tells Milla Öystilä, tourism specialist from governing body of Suomenlinna. “We receive approximately 1 000 000 visitors during the year, and 2/3 of them are foreign visitors. Also, in terms of sustainable development, we must take into account not only visitors, but also locals, who live there permanently as Suomenlinna is an island with residents”. 

“To ensure our sustainable development, we are certified with WWF Green Office certificate and hold also Sustainable Travel Finland -label. We want to be forerunners in sustainability and are eager to take new initiatives as they appear. For example, we have used emission free electricity already since 2011. Also, UNESCO’s publication “World Heritage in Europe today” chose our Sustainable Tourism strategy as a very good example of preserving the European heritage some years ago, and I know, that also some of our colleagues in the Nordic countries have used our strategy as an example when they were creating their own sustainable tourism strategies. I think this is something that we can be proud of”, says Öystilä. 

Suomenlinna website

Hawkhill is a family-owned cottage resort located a half an hour drive away from Helsinki in the middle of Nuuksio national park, so preserving the nature is highly important for Hawkhill.  

Being company located in the middle of the nature and thus depending on it, entrepreneurs have gone a convincing extra mile to ensure sustainability in company’s every action. For example, Hawkhill uses only CO2-emission free electricity and recycles literally everything possible. The resort buildings themselves are designed to last at least for 100 years. To ensure own sustainable development, the company has also acquired AI controlled heating, done measures for minimizing water consumption and minimizes catering’s food waste.  

Hawkhill offers their clients the possibility to charge their electric cars and all of the company’s cars are electric cars as well. For cleaning they use only eco labelled detergents. Shampoos and soap utensils that are offered to the guests are also eco labelled. Excess food from events is donated to charity. For example, as one of their climate actions, Hawkhill is restoring their own bog, so it will become their own carbon sink. 

Hawkhill was one of the first companies to receive the Sustainable Travel Finland -label in 2020. One of Hawkhill’s future goals is to compensate all its emissions from the day they started operating back in 1963. 

Hawkhill website

16.1.2023