Responsibility in Nukula

Values are the foundation of everything we do. They also strongly guide our responsible behaviour. In 2019, we made a public commitment to the principles of sustainable tourism and received the Green Key certification, as a testament to our long-standing and tenacious sustainable performance as a tourism company. In spring 2020, the company completed the Sustainable Travel Finland programme and met the criteria set for the label. Nukula has been awarded the Sustainable Travel Finland label for its long-term valuable work for sustainable tourism.

Customers – all are welcome

Respect for everyone and everything is one of our values. So we meet our guests with respect for equality. We are inclusive, which means equal, non-discriminatory, inclusive and participatory. Unfortunately, our old facilities are challenging and sometimes inaccessible for people with reduced mobility, but not for others. We are in the process of planning a second entrance to the meeting room, which is also, among other things, a place to have dinner, to make it accessible to people with reduced mobility.

The only important thing that classifies our guests is the food. In 2022, we switched to vegetarian and fish dishes, https://nukula.fi/en/food/. Guests are asked in advance about their diets, especially allergies. We implement a variety of diets.

Nature

Our diverse, continous cover, large forest enjoys our respect all year round. It hides valuable natural features and that is why we have voluntarily protected some of it: flying squirrel habitats, copses for animals to hide and nest, the Tuomoja stream flowing into Lake Päijänne, areas with many springs…. The forest maintains nature’s biodiversity and has a large carbon sink, which remains almost constant. Every few years, a local lumberman or forestry company carries out management felling or over-harvesting on unprotected areas.

In an evergreen forest floor, seedlings are constantly emerging, competing with each other and with other vegetation. Constant competition strengthens. They are more resistant to shade, drought, diseases and pests than even-aged planted seedlings (Forestry refinement – benefit or disadvantage, Timo Pukkala, 2018, Arvometsä). Trees have chosen their places and animals their paths. In a thriving forest, people thrive, too.

Our spruce trees covered with beard moss are a reminder of the clean air you need with every breath. And you can’t get along without water, the source of life. Ancient peoples considered the element of water to be divine. Lake Päijänne, the deepest and second largest lake in our country, invites you to purify yourself and rejoice in its clean water, which flows into the capital region for drinking. Water is a refuge for the subconscious, love and emotions. Tune into being on the shore and listen.

We take our clients into our natural forest, to experience the connection with nature so familiar and impressive to Finns. Surrender to the forest and let it capture you in its arms and lull you to sleep. Enjoy its energy and find your inner peace. Sense and respect the wisdom of the forest. The forest is your best friend, your helper and your healer! Our happiness comes from nurturing the forest.

Do you have a sauna in mind? A trip to the forest produces birch whisks used in sauna. Birch leaves contain saponins that are soapy and cleansing. The intoxicating smell of the leaves comes from essential oils. Hitting yourself with the whisk accelerates blood circulation, boosting your immunity and vitality. To get the blood circulating properly, add some juniper branches to the birch whisk. In our country, birch whisks have been used in the past to cure illnesses and protect people or livestock. In the old days, whisks made of alder branches were very common. The sauna witch is used to create a pleasurable experience on the sauna benches. Renewable natural materials create a luxurious bathing experience; no soap, shampoo, conditioners, …Can you find a more responsible way of bathing? Especially when the water for our electricity-free traditional sauna comes from Lake Päijänte with a hand pump.

On a forest hike, baskets are filled with mushrooms, buckets with berries and, at the dawn of summer, with bruce fhoots. We involve our guests in the picking and further processing of the harvest. What could be better than enjoying a homemade berry or mushroom pie or lingonberry juice. At the same time, we will get to know the ancient Finnish culinary culture. We get from nature, and in return we give to nature. We thank you!

Objectives – now and in the future

Our main short-term goal is that every day at Nukula is a responsible day, whether we have customers or not. Our operating environment, our services and our activities implement this principle. A few examples:

In 2022, we will switch to vegetarian and fish dishes.
Professional fisherman catch the fish we need from the Päijänne. The raw materials for our vegetarian meals are always locally produced and as organic as possible. It’s a short distance from vegetarian to vegan, for example. We grow our own vegetables, herbs, fruits and berries. We also collect produce from the forest. No artificial fertilizers or poisons are used.
We involve our customers in our food chain. This has won praise, as has the herb-flavoured Finnish food we serve, prepared on the spot. Campfire food is something that is popular all year round.
However, not everything always goes as expected. Last summer was really challenging. We harvested enough from the perma benches to last us through the winter. But everything else seemed to fail, with just under 10 kg of medium-size carrots, a few beetroot, … We had to rely on our trusted farmer Tuula Laukkanen. But she too had her cabbages and swedes floating in the water all summer.
Wherever you accommodate in our facilities, you will always sleep in the lap of silence and nature. Our main accommodation is the almost 200-year-old log building called Lumous. Come and stay and enjoy the ancient energy and atmosphere created by the large handmade log walls. Responsibility in the rooms is important to us, no fragrance chemicals, no televisions and dry toilets.
We sort and recycle our waste. Customers are encouraged to do the same. The recycling centre in the yard has clear pictures and texts on how to sort waste, also in English. We reuse as much of our waste as possible, e.g. wood material suitable for construction and building repair is stored for future use, glass and small metal cans make excellent paint cans or worm cans for those looking to fish. Organic waste is composted using the bokashi method to fertilise crops.
Physical activities are carried out by muscle power, walking and, in winter, kicksledding. We cooperate with the entrepreneur of the Leivonmäki National Park. You can rent different types of sports equipment from him.
This spring, Bikeland.fi awarded Nukula the WELCOME CYCLIST label. This is a great thing for the company, as the 349 km long cycling route Lakeland by Cycle was established in Central Finland: Hitonhauda’s gravel loop. The route passes by our yard, allowing Nukula to offer cyclists relaxation, accommodation, meals, sauna and bike maintenance.

We actively follow world trends and phenomena. So, with a longer-term commitment to sustainability, we are committed to applying sustainable development in a changing world year after year in the best possible practical ways, in compliance with the agreements. The main areas of focus are energy, the evolution of its production and prices, the monitoring of events linked to climate change, the fate of our country and of biodiversity on the planet as a whole, and the state of the world’s freshwater reserves.

We will seek to make a positive contribution to the state of climate change and adaptation, in particular through our continous cover forestry, keeping the carbon sink as constant as possible from one year to the next. We aim to reduce our own emissions by implementing a circular economy, by identifying our own sources of greenhouse gases and how to reduce them, and by offering our customers opportunities to influence emissions.

For our part, we try to minimise the risks and negative impacts of these sources. Our goal is to improve living conditions for people and the planet, and to increase peace, balance, harmony and love for all, everywhere.

Openness, transparency

Our whole sustainability story relies on the toilet! In 1995, we bought the Piilililä farm, which Nukula took over. The Main building lacked an indoor toilet and the outdoor toilet was not comfortable to enter in the autumn dark. So our first building project was an indoor toilet. A dry toilet, I said, and so it was done. It was such an insightful decision that as we progressed with the renovation of the premises, all the buildings were fitted with water-saving ecological dry toilets. The Lumous accommodation building has four customer rooms, each with a dry toilet, where the water from our spring well comes to the sink, hot and cold. The collective dry toilet in the Main building serves the clients of the two accommodation rooms. In 2012 we completed our private main building with dry toilets. There are now 13 dry toilets in the area. I wouldn’t give them up at any price! One problem has arisen from the point of view of Finnish men. They complain that dry toilets are a challenge. When using the toilet, they too have to sit on the toilet with all their troubles. Could this be the reason for the inconvenience?

We have plans to build a rental villa on the shore of Lake Päijänne. Our municipality, Toivakka, renewed our waterfront plan five years ago and the building regulations required a dry toilet in every villa. We are happy to comply with this requirement. In addition to the villa, a biological grey water treatment plant must be built, of which there are many types on the market. The sewage treatment plant for the planned villa will be built so that it will be shared in the future with the villa to be built on the adjacent plot.

We do not measure our consumption of water. The water comes from our inexhaustible spring. All in all, we are sure to save quite a lot of water thanks to dry toilets. We also collect rainwater for watering the lawn and flowers. Our traditional sauna also saves well water and its pumping, thanks to a hand pump and the water from the great Lake Päijänne from late May to early September.

We closely monitor energy consumption on an ongoing basis. The installation of geothermal heating freed up our energy for other tasks, but above all it reduced our carbon footprint by a huge amount. It has also been one of our most important measures to mitigate climate change. The recent surge in electricity and electricity prices to staggering levels has forced us to find new solutions. The wood-burning stove and the baking oven have been in heavy use on both sides of Christmas. Not very responsible, perhaps, but … At the beginning of 2023, we decided to buy solar panels to reduce our electricity bill and, above all, to increase our responsibility. It was an excellent decision, but not without challenges. The panels were ready to be field installed and connected in the autumn, but the challenge was our company’s inadequate electricity network. The solar panel producer had forgotten to inform the electricity company about the network reinforcement. The panels were probably already generating electricity by the end of the year, but unfortunately only for the crows. We had to wait until the last days of December for the electricity grid to be installed. The excellent thing about the network upgrade was that we had underground cable installed from a transformer a couple of kilometres away.

This spring, the solar panels have been producing well. In mid-winter the price of electricity was around €740 per month and now in April the price of energy is €46. I did not take into account transmission prices, because apparently the transmission price also includes the transmission of the energy that the panels feed into the national grid. Thus the transmission price is between €400 and €700 per month all year round. When I look into these things, I am always amazed at how terribly expensive the transmission of electricity is. I often wonder how we can keep the electricity we produce only for our own use or for the use of the village community without transferring it to the whole country. Batteries could solve the problem.

These considerations have also led to the study of wind turbines with a vertical rotor by Domestic Windside. The turbines are safe and virtually silent, with decibels below 5 dB, and do not emit infrasound, which is dangerous for humans and animals. The manufacturer says that the turbines are entirely sustainable. https://windside.com/.This is one of the sustainability pledges Nukula is now making.

If we need more heavy machinery and equipment than a hammer and chainsaw, we hire it or buy the service from a contractor with machinery. In our small machine range, we have gradually moved to battery-powered machines. This is done as and when the old machine no longer works and cannot be repaired. We already have a battery-powered leaf blower, chainsaw and trimmer. There are plans to buy a battery-powered lawnmower at the beginning of the summer. These practical applications will have a real impact on the economy, the environment and social equality. The battery-powered chainsaw starts easily at the push of a button!

Small and large implementations

It’s great that you encourage people to tell you about small projects. After all, people are often in the habit of only talking about their big, wonderful, world-embracing successes and achievements.

Small responsible achievements include:

Getting rid of invasive species in the garden: For more than 20 years I have been trying to get rid of lupine. I still haven’t succeeded. I don’t use poisons. I have controlled the spread by mowing the flowering plant with scythe several times in the summer. I try to eradicate the rhizome by using shovel. Another enemy is the gourd rose, which was thriving in four different places when we moved here. This spring, at least, I have yet to see any rose leaves sticking out of the grass. If only I’d had some success with this one.
Making and hanging birdhouses in trees: My particular challenge is to help swallows attach their nests under the eaves. I also dream of making “roosts” for bats.
Special drinking “cup” at the spring: Near the company’s premises there is a beautiful area with a few springs on a fairly steep slope. The largest of the springs provides fresh, clear water and can also act as a mirror if you wish. There is a forest path from the farm to the traditional sauna via the spring. A walker along the path can grab a drinking “cup” made from a birch tree bark and enjoy the authentic spring water.

Bigger responsible implementations:

The old buildings are being repurposed: There are four old buildings in the Nukula yard, three of which were converted in the early 2000 s. The Main building has remained the Main building. It has been restored as much as possible, using old materials, according to the suggestions of the Museum of Central Finland. The porch was rebuilt in 2022 to be identical to what it had been for 100 years.The old big granary, the small meat granary and the barn changed their uses. The big granary became an accommodation and the small one, for just one person. A meeting room was built at one end of the barn and a sauna and laundry room downstairs. The other end of the barn is waiting for a new look. All the alterations to the buildings have preserved the old architecture of the buildings, with their mouldings and paint colours and traces of the old working methods. For example, the original external doors of the large granary were neither mouse-proof nor heat-resistant. We retained the doors with their large locks and had new internal doors made mouse-proof and heat-resistant to respect the exterior of the building. To restore the Main building, we commissioned window and door coverings in the style of the early 20th century. As I write this, I realise that in the case of the self-assessment, I have not thought carefully enough about how strong cultural sustainability & cultural heritage actually is in Nukula. The result was 9/14 or 64%. My carelessness is annoying.
The change in the law on forestry: As a farm girl, I also followed forestry. At some point in the 1960s (I couldn’t find the exact date of the law), the forestry law changed so that when a forest owner sold timber, he had to cut the whole area down to a flat area, which was then ploughed, rotten and planted with new seedlings. From 2017 onwards, it was possible to switch to continuous cover forestry. In Nukula, this innovation was immediately introduced. No plot will be cleared of trees! The forest will always remain green, with trees of different ages and qualities. In this way, the carbon sink remains almost constant from year to year, even if the forest is sold. The felling is a moderate upper harvesting. This has been one of the best responsible measures taken by the company.
Geothermal heating: When we bought the farm, the Main building was heated by electricity. The other buildings had no heating at all. We immediately rejected electricity and built a woodchip heating system instead. Already at that time we planned a local district heating network, i.e. we connected the Main building, the accommodation building and the former barn to a common heating network. We obtained the trees from our own forest when we did the maintenance work. It was time to stop making wood chips due to lack of time. The wood chips were replaced by pellets. Burning pellets was a challenge, the furnace and flues had to be cleaned much more often than with wood chips. This also caused untidiness. In addition, the price of pellets began to spiral out of control. We switched to geothermal heating in 2018. No chimney sweeping, places stay tidy and the system works automatically. At the same time, our carbon footprint plummeted to almost zero. Almost because a couple of baking ovens, a wood stove and a fireplace were left to belch smoke into the air in winter. After the installation of geothermal heating in the first year, energy costs were reduced by about 24%.
Solar panels: The most recent major responsible action has been the installation last year and the start of operations this year of solar panels with a capacity of 20 kW. This was driven, and to a large extent forced, by the continuing rise in the price of electricity and, in particular, the price of electricity transmission.

Join me on my responsible path!
https://www.visitfinland.com/sustainable-finland-pledge/

Thank you!

– Hannele Levävaara