SUSTAINABILITY MEANS COMPREHENSIVELY LOOKING AFTER THE NATURE AND PEOPLE OF THE NORTH

For Lapland Hotels & Safaris, sustainability is at the core of everything we do. We use local service providers, and it is important to us that our partners also operate sustainably. As part of the Lapland community, we want to develop tourism in Lapland year-round and create local well-being in our operating areas. In addition to looking after the environment and local communities, we also take care of our customers and personnel.

During the past financial year, we were awarded as many as 24 Sustainable Travel Finland (STF) environmental labels. In the spring of 2022, we were awarded the EcoCompass certificate, which made it possible for our units to apply for the STF label granted by Visit Finland. The label has already been awarded to all of our city hotels, several hotels in Lapland, and Lapland Safaris in Levi, Rovaniemi and Saariselkä, among others. Santa Claus Office, Lapland Ski Resorts Ounasvaara and Ylläs Ski Resorts Äkäslompolo have also been recognised for their sustainability.

Awarded by Visit Finland, the STF label requires the completion of a sustainable tourism development programme and commitment to sustainability criteria. Lapland Hotels & Safaris accounts for a significant share of the over 300 STF labels granted to date in Finland. We also continued the development of our sustainability programme in other ways during the year. Going forward, it will cover the full range of ESG perspectives, including not only environmental impacts but also the social and economic impacts of our activities. We have begun to develop our reporting and define sustainability indicators.

We introduced plastic recycling at all of our locations

As part of our efforts to improve recycling during the past year, we enabled the recycling of plastic at all of our operating locations in early 2023. Recycling has emerged as a very important issue, particularly due to the reform of the Waste Act, and because recycling has now become possible in business activities in northern Finland as well. Our aim is to also promote further progress in sustainability-related matters in our network of producers.

Animal welfare has always been of utmost importance to us, and we again made progress in that area during the past financial year. We prepared a more comprehensive animal welfare programme and animal welfare criteria for our husky farms. The material will be published later on the Lapland Safaris website. In addition, we have been actively involved for about a year in developing safety instructions for dog sled services in collaboration with the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (TUKES). The safety instructions have now been completed and are available on the TUKES website. 

The first electric snowmobiles will be deployed this winter

One of the key steps with regard to sustainability during the new season will be to ensure that recycling and other sustainability priorities are managed smoothly not only within our organisation but also throughout our network of subcontractors, including reindeer farms, husky farms and other destinations. We are also updating our carbon footprint calculations. The previous calculations were carried out five years ago. This time, we will focus on the carbon footprint of properties and other activities on a site-specific basis. This coming winter, we will also deploy the first electric snowmobiles on our safaris.

EXAMPLES OF OUR SUSTAINABILITY ACTIONS:

• For us, competent, committed and satisfied employees are the key. We invest in good management and the well-being of our employees both at work and in their free time.
• We are constantly developing our customers' safety and introducing new services to improve it.
• We use 100% green electricity at all of our locations. The electricity we used during the financial year 2022–2023 was produced with hydropower.
• We also recycle waste at our destinations in Lapland.
• We only organise snowmobile safaris on official routes. We are also committed to compensating all of the carbon dioxide emissions of our snowmobile safaris, and we have acquired electric snowmobiles.
• We are involved in the Animal Welfare programme, and we have a created a comprehensive animal welfare programme and a set of animal welfare criteria.

Find out more about our sustainability actions: https://www.laplandhotels.com/EN/laplandhotels/sustainability/ecocompass