Corporate Responsibility at Välitupa Holiday Cottages

We make an effort to source products and services locally

Whenever possible, we support the local economy by purchasing goods from companies in the surrounding area. In addition to basic consumer goods, we usually buy household appliances from the shop in our village. The new fittings of our latest cottage renovation are the handiwork of a local carpenter and they were made from locally sourced materials – the boards for the kitchen table came from our own woods, and the planks for the sauna bench were sawn from an old larch that grew on the rectory yard in the neighbouring village.

We mainly do the work on the farm ourselves, but if necessary, we hire workers from the surrounding area, from nearby villages and preferably even from the same village. We use local carpenters for the basic renovations of our cottages and yard areas, and the supplies are purchased from local entrepreneurs.

We recommend local services and products to our customers. We help our customers to find local shops and the services of food producers in the surrounding area. We are also happy to give tips about local service providers according to the customer’s interests.

Traditions and culture are important to us

Traditional rural landscape is cultural landscape at its best – after all, our area is marked in the regional plan as a valuable landscape. Sauna culture is also well represented here, as all our cottages have saunas with wood-burning stoves. We are happy to tell our customers about the traditions of the area and our farm, and recommend everyone the cultural attractions and events in the surrounding area.

Accessibility

We try to take accessibility into account in our cottages. This is not easy in some of our older cottages, but in our newest cottage accessibility has been taken into account by providing wide doorways and single-level solutions. If necessary, the cottage can be modified to make it suitable for people with reduced mobility. In future, when renovating our cottages and developing our operations, we will pay particular attention to accessibility.

Environmental responsibility

We encourage our customers to move around in an eco-friendly way, and the rent of all cottages includes a rowing boat. We also rent bicycles, SUP boards and a kayak. We also recommend eco-friendly services provided by local companies, such as horse riding services.

In addition to everyman’s rights, we instruct our customers to take into account responsibilities as well.

We monitor the environmental effects of our operations keenly, and react to them swiftly if necessary.

As a small family business in a small village, we know the local people and the surrounding terrain well, and we can recommend suitable, safe routes for our customers.

We maintain our equipment and tools regularly and check them after each use. 

We save energy by using LED lights, by turning off the lights and electrical equipment when they are not needed, and by using lake water whenever possible, for example, when watering flowerpots and yard areas in summer. The central heating in the cottages is lowered when they are not in use.

In our cottages, waste is sorted according to municipal instructions. In the cottages, we use durable products such as sauna seat covers, hand towels and kitchen tea towels. We recycle all waste and goods properly and try to avoid purchasing unnecessary goods. Recycling is routine for us, both in business and in private life – after all, recycling has been commonplace on farms for generations, partly due to various periods of shortage.

The entrepreneurs and staff are well informed about waste sorting and are happy to help customers with questions related to waste sorting. Written instructions on waste sorting are available at all our cottages.

We support litter-free camping. We regularly do litter pick ups at our cottage yards and the surrounding areas.