Sustainability

We take sustainability into account in our strategy and in all our operations. Our goal is to reduce the carbon footprint of our operations and increase our handprint so that the prerequisites for a good and healthy life will improve both in Finland and in other countries.

Our organisation is committed to promoting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We want our handprint to be visible in the following Sustainable Development Goals in particular:

Good health and well-being
Gender equality
Decent work and economic growth
Reduced inequalities
Peace, justice and strong institutions.

We believe that sustainability shows in practice when:

our solutions are always based on researched data
we ensure the quality and performance of our work
our operations are transparent to everyone
our work community is diverse and pluralistic.

The most important change factors in the operating environment in 2023 were the launch of the operation of wellbeing services counties and the change in the security policy environment as a result of Russia’s war of aggression. These factors contribute to people’s worries about the functioning of healthcare and social welfare services and about climate change.

The changed operating environment also requires a change in our operations. We focus our operations on supporting the wellbeing services counties and want to respond to society's expectations responsibly, taking into account planetary health and wellbeing in all decision-making. It is important to identify and support measures that simultaneously benefit the wellbeing of people and the rest of nature. Sustainable and healthy nutrition and active everyday physical activity are practical examples of this.

From the point of view of comprehensive security, social sustainability is a key characteristic of society. Among other things, it is visible as wellbeing, trust, inclusion, non-discrimination and social justice. We want to increase the social sustainability of society by focusing on preventing harm caused especially by alcohol, drugs and addictions and on improving the mental health of young people. We also prepare efficiently for international health threats.

Our aim is also to keep the carbon footprint of our operations as small as possible. For example, our Tilkanmäki site has received the Green Office certificate.

Handprint 2023

At THL, we promote planetary health and wellbeing, an approach that recognises the interconnectedness of the health and wellbeing of humans and the rest of nature. The approach enables us to identify and support measures that simultaneously benefit the wellbeing of humans and the rest of nature. Sustainable and healthy nutrition and active everyday physical activity are practical examples of this.

We strengthen interaction and cooperation with different sectors, actively study and communicate about health-promoting and nature-friendly everyday choices, and participate actively in the development of national programmes, policies and legislation. This way, we provide sustainable solutions for the implementation of decisions and choices that promote health and wellbeing at all levels.

In 2023 we:
- Produced information on the health and wellbeing impacts of climate change and environmental pollution. We highlighted the connections between health and wellbeing of humans and the rest of nature in our studies, statements, communication, events, dialogues with our partners and other activities.
- Participated in drawing up the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations renewed in 2023, in which the nutrition beneficial not only to health but also to the environment is taken into account. We produced policy recommendations with our partners to promote sustainable and healthy nutrition both in Finland and in Europe.
- Promoted multiprofessional cooperation, which is important for planetary health and wellbeing in Finland and internationally. We were involved in setting up the new national LuontoTerVe research network for researchers on nature and health in 2023, and we have an expert representative in the Finnish Climate Change Panel for the period 2024–2027. We promoted the sustainable development of cities and municipalities as part of WHO’s Healthy Cities Network and coordinated its national operation.
- Developed tools for decision-making concerning the welfare economy. The welfare economy is a concrete way to promote overall sustainability. In addition, in the Ecologically Sustainable Social and Health Care (EKO-SOTE) project, we produced a proposal together with our partners for how it would be possible to monitor and guide the ecological sustainability of the healthcare and social welfare system nationally.
Strengthening resilience is one of the main objectives of our activities. People’s coping and mental resilience have already been put to test for a long time. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and weak economic prospects affect the mood of people in Finland.

In particular, we focus on preventing harm caused by alcohol, drugs and addictions and on improving the mental health of young people.

Our goal in the longer term is to prevent the harmful effects of substance use and an increase in the use of different substances, to ensure access to treatment at a sufficiently early stage and equality of access to substance abuse and addiction rehabilitation, to reduce the stigma affecting people with mental health problems and substance abusers, and to increase the effectiveness of treatment.

We also strive to strengthen the positive mental health of children and young people and to reduce welfare differences. We want to strengthen the everyday structures that promote mental welfare and to increase the mental health skills and competence of young people themselves and those of healthcare and social welfare professionals. We also want to increase low-threshold services.

In 2023 we:
- Promoted more responsible alcohol policy in Finland with our partners. Total consumption of alcohol has been on the decline for a long time, and according to THL’s Drinking Habits Survey published in 2023, fewer and fewer Finns drink alcohol regularly.
- Launched the national gambling harm prevention network (Pelihaittaverkosto). The objective of the network is to support wellbeing services counties and their professionals in the development of support and treatment services for gambling problems.
- Published a model for preliminary assessment of mental health impacts together with our partners. The model is aimed at increasing the positive and decreasing the negative mental health impacts of the decisions that are made.
- As part of the Division for mental health, substance abuse and addiction of the Advisory Board for Public Health operating under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, we drew up recommendations for the minimum content of mental health, substance abuse and addictive phenomena for initial education of occupations in sectors working in direct interaction.
- Drew up new recommendations to support the prevention of stigma and discrimination, as strong prejudices are still associated with serious mental illnesses, substance abuse problems and addictions.
THL's work strengthens society's ability to maintain everyday security and face crises.

From the point of view of comprehensive security, a key characteristic of society is its social sustainability, which is visible as wellbeing, trust, inclusion, non-discrimination and social justice. Almost all work carried out at THL is therefore linked to security.

Our task is also to prepare for, identify and respond to national and cross-border health threats and disruptions. Health threats include pandemics and chemical threats, for example.

We are in charge for preparedness in the following areas:
- communicable diseases, biothreats and unknown threats
- threats to environmental health and chemical threats
- wholesale of pharmaceuticals, including rescEU reserve
- forensic medicine and DNA identification
- national cooperation between authorities in the information management of social welfare and health care
- infrastructure and internal readiness of the Institution.
In 2023 we:
- Continued to monitor the situation picture of the COVID-19 pandemic and published information, instructions and recommendations related to it. In 2023, research related to the topic focused on the assessment of the long-term effects of the pandemic, such as the mental health of young people. We also collected lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic in order to make Finland stronger in the face of future crises.
- Worked in active cooperation to combat the avian influenza epidemic and reported its situation picture nationally and internationally. THL’s preparedness was at an intensified level from July to November 2023.
- Studied and developed work against violence widely. For example, in 2023, we published a tool aimed at healthcare and social welfare professionals to support them in identifying radicalisation of violence and intervening in it. A similar tool is not yet available elsewhere and it has also attracted great interest at the level of the EU.
- Strengthened the EU’s preparedness to respond to serious major accidents and to threats and crisis situations as part of the extensive rescEU project. RescEU is the EU's emergency stockpiling project, in which THL is responsible for the procurement and stockpiling of medicinal products.

Footprint 2023

The footprint of an organisation's operations consists of negative ecological, economic and social impacts caused by the organisation’s existence and operation. While we want to increase our handprint, we want to reduce our footprint. We are working towards this by reducing our CO2 emissions, using public funds responsibly and taking care of our most important resource, our personnel.

Ecological

Our carbon footprint is assessed by the State Treasury at the level of central government as a whole. Our carbon footprint mainly consists of premises and travel. We therefore aim to reduce our carbon footprint through more efficient use of our premises and participation in the government’s joint premises projects. In 2023, we gave up our premises at Biomedicum in Helsinki and in Tampere, we moved to a shared work environment with Senate Properties. In Oulu, we will move to joint premises in the next few years and in other localities, the use of joint premises is promoted in close cooperation with Senate Properties and other public actors.

We have also been actively involved in promoting carbon neutrality in cooperation with Senate Properties. Within the energy-saving programme of Senate Properties, we adjusted heating, cooling and ventilation, making them more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. We have also switched to LED lamps in lighting. In construction and repair projects, we support Senate Properties’ objectives of carbon-neutral construction by favouring the implementation of renewable forms of energy in our facilities, critically examining our processes and facility needs, and by promoting biodiversity. Compared with 2022, we used 10.85% less electricity at our site in Tilkanmäki in 2023.

At the end of 2023, the Tilkanmäki site was granted WHO's Green Office certificate, which guides and supports our Institute in achieving the footprint objectives. The goal of our GO environmental programme was to improve the recycling of different waste fractions and we began to collect plastic packaging and other recyclable materials in the break-time facilities at Tilkanmäki.

Travel decreased significantly due to coronavirus in 2020–2021, but has increased again after that. Our carbon dioxide emissions have therefore increased. Our CO2e kg was 18,666 in 2021, 230,514 in 2022 and 360,544 in 2023. However, the number of air miles in 2023 is lower than before the coronavirus pandemic, since remote meetings have become an established practice.

Financial

The use of financial resources in 2023 is described in the financial statements. In procurements, we examine the possibility of taking sustainability into account in each tendering process. We monitor how sustainability is taken into account in procurements on an annual basis and take the necessary measures (e.g. improving instructions) to promote sustainability.

Social

Equality and non-discrimination are important elements in all our activities. Our aim is to lead the way in equality in Finnish society. We actively develop and monitor our activities with the help of an operational and personnel policy plan for gender equality and non-discrimination. We monitor the realisation of gender equality and non-discrimination through regular occupational welfare surveys. Gender equality and non-discrimination training is also included in the training programme intended for the entire personnel and is a part of orientation material for new employees.

An external party assessed the implementation of THL’s operational and personnel policy plan for gender equality and non-discrimination 2021–2023. The results were used to produce the new plan drawn up at the beginning of 2024.