Ylva the first to adopt Compensate – it is now easy to compensate for one’s own carbon footprint in its Helsinki-based restaurants, cafés and other properties

The option to compensate will be brought to all of Ylva’s business operations

From this day forward, customers may compensate for their own carbon footprints in 20 different Ylva-owned restaurants and cafés around Helsinki in connection with making a purchase. For instance, while buying lunch at UniCafe’s counter, you can decide whether you want to compensate for the carbon emissions caused by the food’s production and preparation. Ylva’s hostel business has already been compensating for the carbon emissions caused by the accommodation for ten years.

From now on, tenants of properties owned by Ylva can compensate for the carbon emissions related to the properties’ maintenance. The properties’ carbon footprint is composed of the use of electricity and heating. In order to be an example when it comes to paying carbon debts, Ylva compensates for the emissions for the premises used by it or its owner community the Student Union, such as those at the New Student House in Helsinki.

Compensate, founded by Antero Vartia, provides a model for those willing to compensate for their carbon footprint. The carbon footprint reports the greenhouse gas emissions created during the life span of a product, service or activity. Compensate is looking for different ways to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Ylva the first in Finland to launch the Compensate model

Ylva is the first company in Finland to utilise the carbon footprint compensation potential using the Compensate model. More companies than before in Finland intend to provide consumers and other companies alike the option to compensate for carbon footprints, and many of them intend to adopt the Compensate solution in the near months.

“Companies have a significant role in searching for solutions to climate change. Compensating for one’s carbon footprint must be made as easy as possible and a natural part of daily life. The practice becoming more common outside of the flight and travel industry is a highly positive phenomenon, strongly indicating that people are worried about the future of the planet. We now need concrete actions to slow down climate change”, Ylva’s CEO Antti Kerppola says and continues:

“Responsibility and eco-friendliness are important themes for us, and our customers and tenants are also expecting it to show in our practices. In the restaurant sector of our business, vegan food and the now-to-be-employed Compensate are tangible means by which we make our operation more sustainable, also from a climate perspective.”

“In our real estate business, we are constructing the Lyyra block in the middle of Hakaniemi and Kallio. Eco-friendliness will be taken into account in its construction as well as in the services to be introduced into the properties. Compensate is a tool with which even our tenants can participate in mitigating climate change”, Kerppola explains.

Properties and restaurants where carbon footprints can already be compensated:

• All UniCafe restaurants around Helsinki
• WELL Kaisa House
• WELL Terkko
• Restaurant Serpens
• Kaivotalo
• Kaivopiha
• Mechelin3D*
• Domus Gaudium*
• New Student House*
• Old Student House
• Hostel Domus Academica**

*Compensation by Ylva for spaces used by HYY

**Compensation currently by Ylva