Ensuring sustainable growth is the City’s most important task. This is strongly linked to SDG 8 Decent work and economic growth, which also highlights the promotion of sustainable tourism. The tourism and event industry is a key part of Helsinki’s vitality as the capital. Sustainability has also been put at the forefront of the development of tourism, events and city marketing in Helsinki.
Tourism
According to Helsinki’s City Strategy, the aim is to make Helsinki the world’s smartest and most sustainable travel destination. Helsinki’s Tourism and Events Programme 2022–2026, completed in spring 2022, sets out the detailed objectives, measures and indicators to achieve this goal.
Helsinki is part of the Global Destination Sustainability Index, which measures the sustainability of travel and event destinations across a wide range of factors. Helsinki aims to be the index’s top destination by the end of 2025. Helsinki ranked sixteenth in 2021, twelfth in 2022 and fourth in 2023. In 2024, Helsinki reached the top of the index. The overall index score has increased by a remarkable 19.9 points between 2021 and 2024 (72.5/100 in 2021, 92.4/100 in 2024).
Helsinki is part of the Carbon Neutral Experience 2.0 project, which aims to make tourism in Uusimaa as low-carbon as possible. Helsinki is also involved in the project ‘Congresses and Corporate Events as Drivers of Innovation and Sustainability in the Helsinki Capital Region’, which aims to create a sustainable meeting and congress product in cooperation with the industry.
Helsinki has also signed the UN’s Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, drawn up a climate roadmap for tourism and calculated the carbon footprint of tourism in Helsinki. In addition to this, Helsinki has carried out an analysis of the current state of inclusivity in tourism and prepared an inclusive tourism action plan.
Helsinki is investing heavily in the national Sustainable Travel Finland (STF) programme for travel destinations and companies. The City has promoted the certification of companies in this programme and aims to make Helsinki an STF destination by the end of 2025. The programme takes into account all areas of sustainability. The programme also includes the calculation of companies’ carbon footprints, among other things. The goal is to have around 100 companies in Helsinki that have completed the STF programme by the end of 2025. In October 2024, 75 companies had an STF label.
Since 2019, the Think Sustainably service has helped local residents and visitors choose a more sustainable lifestyle in Helsinki and enjoy the City’s responsible services. Companies included in the service have passed the criteria, for which they have been awarded the green Think Sustainably label. They can display the label on their MyHelsinki.fi page and their own channels.
As the EU’s Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition and the Green Claims Directive progress, it has been decided that the service cannot continue in its current form. The service does not include a formal audit process, which will be required by the new EU legislation. For this reason, the service in its current form will end in January 2025 in connection with the redesign of the MyHelsinki.fi website.
Events
Sustainability plays a major role in the development of events, the selection of Helsinki’s partner events and the measures taken to make use of paid partnerships. Helsinki offers two concrete tools for event organisers: the Event Carbon Footprint Calculator and the Compass for Social Responsibility. The Helsinki nighttime noise guidelines for 2023–2025 take into account the results of the 2022 resident survey and the views of event operators. Feedback from event noise has decreased after the introduction of the guidelines. Events with an EcoCompass certificate receive a 30% discount on land use. Furthermore, the City has started extensive work to improve the infrastructure of event sites in Helsinki.
The City has created a dedicated sustainability section on the hel.fi pages for event organisers. The permits and notifications required from event organisers are structured to guide towards responsible event organisation (e.g. waste management, noise, temporary traffic arrangements).
Event visitor surveys systematically collect data on the carbon footprint of event visitors and the social sustainability of events. At the end of 2024, a survey on sustainability will be sent to partner events.
International city marketing
Sustainability is one of the cornerstones of the Helsinki brand, and it is reflected in all of the City’s activities. It is actively highlighted in all communications and marketing. The value proposition of the Helsinki brand is ‘It’s a good life’ — the brand is built around social sustainability. Sustainability is also widely taken into account in brand management: for example, the 2023 update on the guidelines of visual storytelling puts an emphasis on norm-aware visual storytelling and visual accessibility.
International city marketing highlights sustainability, equality and nature as Helsinki’s strengths, including through the Helsinki Sustainable City 360° video series published in 2021. The Sustainable Helsinki website brings together information about Helsinki’s sustainability work. During 2023, Helsinki invested in building the international key messages for Helsinki’s green transition, and as a result of Helsinki Partners’ PR work, around 60 articles on sustainability were published in the international media in 2023 and 2024.
Responsibility is also one of the permanent cornerstones of the MyHelsinki.fi online service. The different dimensions of responsibility are taken into account in the day-to-day content production and curation work throughout the process, both in terms of content provider prioritisation and image choices. Most of the editorial articles of MyHelsinki.fi also include a responsibility aspect; there are over 100 articles with a strong emphasis on some dimension of responsibility.
In the new MyHelsinki 2.0 online service, which will be launched in early 2025, responsibility will be a central theme. It will be integrated into all of the content, taking into account the different aspects of responsibility. We will provide information on responsible actions by both the City and businesses, including highlighting sustainability-certified companies (e.g. STF) in our communications. At the heart of the communications, however, is the idea that responsibility is a journey; no individual or organisation is perfect in terms of responsibility — there is always room for small or large steps towards more responsible activities.
Helsinki is known for its sustainability. In an analysis of Helsinki’s international reputation carried out in collaboration with The Business of Cities, sustainability emerges as one of Helsinki’s strengths time after time. In the latest survey in 2023, Helsinki received an excellent score for sustainability, which shows that Helsinki’s long-term work on sustainability has been noticed.
Successes:
- Helsinki’s placement and index score in the Global Destination Sustainability Index rose significantly.
- A significant number of companies have joined the Sustainable Travel Finland programme and completed environmental certification.
- Sustainability has become part of the international brand of Helsinki.
Areas for development:
- Carbon footprint calculation for companies in the tourism and event industries is an important but also challenging task. Significant investments are required in the development of both tools and the skills of the entire ecosystem to develop the calculation to the desired level.
- Preparation for the impacts of climate change is still in its infancy and will require investment.
- The development of communication on sustainable activities and the productisation and promotion of sustainable tourism and event products require additional investments.
- The development of inclusive tourism and events has begun, but significant investments are still needed to make Helsinki truly diverse and inclusive.
Programmes and websites:
Helsinki Tourism and Events Programme 2022–2026 PDF
Sustainable tourism development in Helsinki