Sustainability

Sustainability is one of our main values at Solmukohta 2024. It is not always easy to be sustainable when there are hundreds of people from around the world travelling to Solmukohta, and the hotel also has its own rules and practices, but we do our best.

What we’re doing:

• Our tickets are CO2-emission-compensated
• There will be no printed programme (programme will be available online, as well as posted in several places at the venue, and you can print your own if that does not work for you)
• There are no goodie bags, ie. we will not give you a welcome gift bag with unnecessary souvenirs
• Most of the organising meetings are online
• The hotel recycles and has a sustainability plan
• document as much as we can of the event program for people who can’t participate due to travel distance

We encourage you to:

• not buy unnecessary decorations, accessories, costumes and such for the party, especially new, but to borrow, recycle and buy second-hand
• bring your own  thermos cup
• bring your own water bottle (tap water in Finland is drinkable)
• recycle
• not bring flyers to the event (to advertise your larp, bring a poster; we will have a poster wall and encourage participants to take photos of the posters)
• use public transportation
• compensate your travel CO2 footprint
• avoid as much food and paper waste as possible

The hotel

We are asking the hotel not to use disposable cups, straws (straws available if needed for people who need them), and asking that the meals be as sustainable as possible within their own policies.

This page gives an overview of the hotel’s sustainability practices: https://www.scandichotelsgroup.com/en/sustainability/

CO2 emissions and compensation

Our CO2 footprint estimate is based on calculations made for Solmukohta 2020 by Nina Killström and Massi Hannula. At that time, the rounded-up estimate was 9,000 kg CO2e. The calculations took into consideration the hotel’s use of electricity, emissions created by hotel guests, meals, water usage, Solmukohta car usage, printing, goodie bags, nametags, food waste, and the book. The calculation does not include the participants’ travel emissions to the conference, as those vary greatly, and compensating for them would be very uneven, as some will travel to the location by train or car, whereas others travel by plane. We encourage participants to compensate for their own travel emissions.

In 2024 we will not have goodie bags, and our book is lighter, but much of the other estimates remain similar. We have chosen to round the estimate up to 10,000 kg CO2e, and the cost for compensating for that is factored in our budget. 

Big thanks to Solmukohta 2020, Massi Hannula and Nina Killström for the original calculations.