Sustainability

Company values and responsibility

Hotel Kalevala is located in the middle of beautiful, clean nature, and with our own actions we intend to respect nature and local services in accordance with sustainable development. We work in co-operation with local companies offering program, transport, and guide services. Promoting tourism, increasing jobs and the profitability of work in the region is important to us.

In our restaurant, we prefer local food from local providers. For our restaurant, we get e.g. local vegetables, eggs, bread, pastries and fish from lake next to us. Depending on the situation, bread, pastries and home-made ice cream are also prepared in our own kitchen. In addition, we buy berries and mushrooms collected directly from local nature from local berry and mushroom pickers. We have also mapped the supply of the surrounding municipalities and in the future we plan to order other products from the surrounding area.
Coffee and tea are organic and/or fair trade products, and in the future, together with the kitchen staff, we will also look for organic and fair trade equivalents in other products. We do not use meat, fish or shellfish products that come from endangered or protected stocks or species.
Plants, animals or historical and archaeological objects are not sold, exchanged or displayed.
We are committed to making responsible purchases and investments. New consumables are bought only when necessary, old ones are repaired if possible.

We help our customers find nearby nature. From our reception, we can advise you on the nearest ski tracks, the best snowshoe routes and the most wonderful nature spots. We also have advice and help with other local services. We encourage our guests to help save the environment with their choices, e.g. electricity and water consumption in the room. The hotel has charging points for electric cars for customers to use. We calculate temperatures and change ventilation settings as needed from empty rooms during quiet times to save energy.

Some of our staff have participated in the We Speak Gay rainbow training, which encourages diversity in companies. We are aware of the discrimination experienced by rainbow people in tourism and we want to actively communicate and act so that our company is a safe space for everyone.

We treat all our guests and our staff equally with respect. We don’t care about anyone’s background, nationality, religion or sexual orientation. In hiring, we do not discriminate against anyone due to e.g. age, ethnic background, gender or disability.

Our company guarantees a safe working environment and we ensure that our premises are physically and mentally safe for both staff and guests. We have occupational accident insurance and an occupational health care service for the entire staff. We do not accept corruption or harassment or exploitation of anyone. Our staff is trained for crisis situations.
We require that subcontractors comply with the legislation on employee rights.

We are committed to training our staff on environmental and responsibility issues related to their own work. Our company’s head of environmental issues informs our staff members about new practices, ecological choices, and if possible, the staff participates in relevant trainings.

We are committed to promoting local culture, e.g. ordering local food, selling local souvenirs. Interior elements made from waste wood from local sawmills have been designed together with a local interior designer to use in rooms and decorations.

We are involved in the Wild Taiga Kuhmo-Suomussalmi joint marketing association, which was selected as an STF pilot target. The companies are working together to develop the region’s sustainable development, and there are plans for customers traveling to the region to compensate the emissions of the trip for the benefit of the region.

We comply with the law, regulations and agreements, and with our activities we intend to make tourism sustainable and inspire other actors, our guests and our staff to take sustainable development actions. We have calculated our company’s carbon footprint and with our actions we intend to reduce it by saving energy and water, increasing vegetarian food options, tracking load orders and reducing food waste even further.