At the turn of the year, people often make New Year's resolutions. Individuals get gym memberships, decide to start a new hobby, and begin to study languages and make the world a better place. Often, these promises don't go as planned. But what about corporate promises?
As a company belonging to the Turku City Group, we have made certain promises regarding responsibility. Last summer, we signed a commitment with the City of Turku aimed at reducing emissions, from which we can extract given promises and examine where we stand regarding them.
A carbon-neutral company?
The commitment includes a promise that our company aims to be carbon neutral by 2029, to the extent possible for a real estate investment company. As time seems to move in fast-forward, this goal will not be met by small steps but requires giant leaps. We took one giant leap towards this at the turn of the year when, starting January 1st, 2025, we switched to using Turku Energia's district heating product, which produces heat completely without fossil fuels. Our properties' district heating consumption is roughly estimated at 30,000 MWh per year. The agreement made now means, in calculated terms, that our annual carbon dioxide emissions will drop by over a million kilograms!
Easy reporting
Many of our tenants will in the future need to report on their responsibility and calculate their carbon footprint. We are significantly easing their task, as in the future, electricity, district heating, and cooling will be emission-free. This means that as our client, emissions related to the premises are at a minimum. And even though our utility electricity is 100% wind power, we still aim to increase our self-sufficiency regarding electricity and have, among other things, mapped out locations for new solar panels.
Can a responsible operator build something new?
There has been much talk that construction cannot be an environmental act. The most responsible thing would be to do nothing, which investors and owners might have something to say about. Another option would be just to repair and maintain the old building stock. Unfortunately, the plots held by Teknologiakiinteistöt used for the needs of the growing city contain very little building stock worth preserving. Everything that can be saved is saved, but the recycling rate of old industrial halls built decades ago in accordance with the standards of that time cannot be very high, and furthermore, the soil of the plots is often heavily contaminated.
”On an annual basis, our carbon dioxide emissions will fall by more than a million kilograms from the current level.”
In the big picture, Turku is growing, people need homes, and companies need business premises. No matter how you look at it, urban and regional development in the Science Park and Itäharju areas requires new construction, and as a company, we are at the center of one of Turku's key projects.
When building new, operators must ensure that growth is done as responsibly as possible. As a company, we are committed to this, and we have, for example, built all our latest sites to the highest LEED Platinum standard, which ensures a low construction carbon footprint and a controlled building lifecycle. We have even used solid wood as a construction material in AkvaCity.
A fresh start as an entrepreneur
Responsible operation also involves an obligation to “help the smaller ones”. Economic times are challenging, and many companies are struggling to stay in business, and some are unable to do so. As a result, there is a large group of educated experts with long careers who are unemployed, and very few job openings available. If you have a laptop, a business idea, and working from home or your kitchen table is starting to get cramped, you can start realizing your dream with a low threshold and minimal costs at our Werstas, and initially employ yourself and perhaps others later. We scale from one-person companies to pharmaceutical plants and everything in between, and in a changing world, you can change with us without moving. We have a few concrete examples that all this is possible. Everyone needs new ideas, companies, and employers.
Electric cars replacing internal combustion engines
One of the promises we made to the city concerned the vehicle fleet of Teknologiakiinteistöt and upgrading it to emission-free. In this regard, the situation is not quite “six out of five,” but we are close. Of the six vehicles owned by the company, four are already all-electric, and the final two will be upgraded to electric cars.
What about emission compensation?
However, I still have one personal wish: that someone would tell us how to solve the compensation of the remaining emissions in a sensible and measurable way. After that, the list of measures to be taken will shorten, and fulfilling the promises made will start to look even likely.
Erkki Oikarinen
Risk Management and Sustainability Manager
