Sustainability

The responsibility theme covers themes related to financial viability, good governance and partnership. This is monitored in the strategy with housing occupancy rates. Rental income from apartments normally accounts for approximately 97% of the foundation’s income, and changes in the occupancy rate quickly affect the operating conditions and opportunities to implement other strategy objectives and aspects of the responsibility program.

In 2023, the economic occupancy rate of apartments was 97.8% (97.2% in 2022).

Economically efficient and profitable operation culminates in the break-even cost rents, the efficiency of the renting process and the active maintenance of the property and loan portfolio. Within its organizational form and area of operation, TYS already bears significant responsibility for the surrounding society by providing affordable housing for students.

A strategy objective is to keep rents 15% to 20% below market rents.

The realization of this objective is actively monitored.  The rental comparison is carried out by an external operator, the last of which was done in 2023. According to this, the Foundation’s rents are below market rents in accordance with the target. The next rental comparison will be made in spring 2025.

Transparency of TYS’s administration refers to responsible use of TYS’s assets and operations in accordance with good governance. New construction and renovation are financed by ARA’s subsidized loans and investment grants, i.e. public funds. A significant part of the tenants receives housing allowance from Kela.

In 2023, the foundation paid taxes and taxlike payments totalling approximately 5.2 M€ and received grants totalling 0.1 M€, which means that the tax footprint for 2023 was a total of 5.1 M€ (in 2022, approximately 2.7 M€).

TYS adheres to the Act on the Contractor’s Obligations and Liability when Work is Contracted Out (1233/2006) and the Act on Public Procurement and Concession Contracts (1397/2016) in its operations.

External services are procured for the maintenance and upkeep of properties and outdoor areas, cleaning, repairs, and new construction and renovations. In addition, many different expert services are procured, such as IT services.

In 2023, the Foundation acquired products and services from hundreds of different suppliers. Procurement exceeding the procurement limit is tendered in accordance with the Public Procurement Act. With regard to smaller product and service procurements below the procurement limits of the Act on Public Contracts, the aim is to invite tenders from more than one supplier.

During 2023, hundreds of people worked in the Foundation’s properties and related tasks, for example in maintenance, servicing, cleaning and on-site work, working with service providers, suppliers and suppliers providing expert services.

The responsibility theme encompasses the organization and personnel: the development of personnel competence, well-being and equality. A prosperous work community contributes to enabling operational efficiency, good customer service experience, and realizing service promises and other responsibility themes. The strategy monitors this with an overall personnel rating of the workplace. The objective is that a commendable or good (4-5, scale 1-5) rating would be given by more than 85% of the personnel.

In the latest personnel survey, conducted in early 2024, in which the personnel assessed the Foundation’s activities for 2022, 88% of the respondents gave an excellent or good rating (89% in 2022), the average rating was 4.4 (4.4 in 2021).

Different backgrounds, competence and abilities are taken into account in the operations. The development of the personnel expertise means investments in training and developing expertise as part of day-to-day work.

The total number of training days in trainings organised by an external parties was 97 days in 2023, an average of 4.4 days per person (78 days in 2022, 3.5 days per person). The target of 3 training days/person was exceeded in 2023.

The well-being of the personnel is monitored in the personnel survey on the basis of several indicators. The personnel influence the foundation’s operations, for example, in team and entire personnel meetings, as well as e.g. through the initiative channel and the activities of the cooperation committee.

The staff have access to a new initiative form on Microsoft Teams, which can be used to make suggestions and development ideas regarding the Foundations operation. The platform includes a function for following the progress of each initiative.

Fostering equality and non-discrimination is an important part of TYS’s responsibility. There is zero tolerance for inappropriate behaviour, workplace bullying and all forms of discrimination.

A working group consisting of TYS employees have compiled guidelines for the Foundation’s office to ensure a comfortable and productive working environment. The functionality of these guidelines is reviewed as needed. Certain clarifications have been made to the guidelines based on suggestions and feedback received from staff members.

The responsibility theme encompasses customer-related perspectives: customer service and service promises, communication, comfort and quality of housing, and community spirit. The strategy monitors this through service promises. The foundation’s service promises were announced in 2018. The goal is, for example, that at least 97% of tenants messages are answered during the next working day.

In 2023, the tenants gave high grades to areas such as TYS’s customer service (4.12), the quality of apartments (4.03) and communications (4.03). The target for all these grades is over 4.0 (on a scale of 1-5).

The objective is to reach potential tenants, know the needs of the customers, respond to demand with suitable apartments and be the number one choice of the students. Customer satisfaction has been monitored through both an annual extensive customer satisfaction survey and a monthly moving out survey.

Customers are served equally regardless of gender, age, nationality or other background. Tenant selection is based on ARA’s tenant selection guidelines.

TYS monitors the satisfaction of its tenants at a monthly basis through customer satisfaction surveys sent to different housing locations, as well as with moving-in and moving-out surveys. The customer satisfaction survey reached the tenants of all housing locations over the year.

Comfortable and high-quality apartments requires supervision of maintenance quality, investments in repairs and taking tenants’ suggestions into account in repairs. The resolution time of housing problem situations, i.e. the resolution time of fault reports, is monitored.

In addition to renovations, the apartments are repaired and refurbished as needed, for example when tenants change. Proposals for renovations are collected annually from the tenant committees when preparing the budget.

In 2023, the foundation carried out apartment renovations in its housing locations for 0.95€/m2/month. In 2024, 0.45€/m2/month has been budgeted for apartment renovations.

TYS communicates with its customers in a proactive and timely manner. Successful communication requires commitment to customer communications from all staff, along with a shared understanding of the importance of timely communication.

Communication is done in multiple channels, multilingually, and considering accessibility requirements, so that information would reach customers in the best way possible.

Tenants’ opinions on the Foundation’s communications are inquired monthly in the tenant satisfaction survey, which is sent out to different housing locations, and once a year in the communications survey. In 2023, tenants gave TYS communications a general rating of 4.03 (4.0 in 2022).

Communality is an integral part of student housing. TYS supports communality, for example, by offering tenants different kinds of common use spaces along with tenant and stakeholder events.

The majority of the Foundation’s housing locations have an operational tenant committee. Tenant activities are executed in close collaboration with tenant committees and the Tenant Committees’ Advisory Board. In 2023, student committees organized, e.g., different kinds of events and took care of lending items belonging to the housing locations.

In 2023, a tenant activity survey was sent to all tenants, giving the tenants a chance to evaluate the operations of tenant committees and submit their own development ideas. In the future, the survey will be conducted annually.

The user numbers for the communal space TYS n’ Chill continued to grow in 2023. By the end of 2023, a total of 900 tenants had obtained personal access to the space, which is free to use for all tenants of Aitiopaikka, Ikituuri, Nummenranta, Tyyssija, Student Village West and Student Village East as a shared study space and living room.

This responsibility theme includes issues related to environmental aspects: emissions from energy and water consumption and energy consumption in housing, investments in waste management, sustainable development, and comfort and safety aspects of housing. The strategic measure of sustainable housing is the carbon footprint of housing, which is based on the energy consumption of the foundation’s properties and emission-compensated waste management. The foundation has stated in the strategy to be carbon neutral in 2029.

In 2023, the carbon footprint of the Foundation’s own operations was approximately 29% lower than in the comparison year of 2020 for the Foundation’s carbon neutrality target (4,168 tonnes CO2-eq) and approximately 23% lower than in 2022 (3,853 tonnes CO2-eq).)

The carbon footprint was reduced especially due to the decreased emission factor of district heating, as well as the lack of any new construction or renovation projects in 2023. Additionally, actions such as the solar panels installed in Nummenranta and the Block 5 of Student Village through the RESPONSE project have increased the energy efficiency of these locations and the amount of renewable energy used.

Climate change mitigation is one of TYS’s key responsibility objectives. Much of the emissions from properties are due to energy consumption and waste. TYS aims to reduce the energy consumption and carbon footprint of the apartments and increase the use of renewable energy. Guiding tenants is important in the responsible actions of day-to-day living. Encouraging energy and water saving as well as waste sorting is part of TYS’s ongoing communication.

The Foundation procures district heating and electricity from Turku Energia. According to Turku Energia, in 2023, 100% of electricity will be produced from renewable energy sources (100 % in 2022). Of district heat 83 % was produced using renewable energy sources (78 % in 2022).

Sustainable development solutions mean for example, investments in solar panels and taking sustainable development into account in renovation and new construction.

In 2023, the approximately 500 solar panels on the roof of Aitiopaikka, the 454 panels at Nummenranta and the 252 panels in Block 5 of the Student Village produced a total of 321 MWh of electricity (48 MWh in 2022), of which 306 MWh were directed to the use of the Foundation’s properties. For the time being, it is not possible to store the output of the solar panels, so the excess 15 MWh was sold to the electricity grid.

An important part of living is the safety of the apartments and neighbourhoods. The locking systems will be modernized gradually in all housing locations. With regard to living environments, TYS contributes to safety by purchasing security guarding services.

Locking systems of the housing locations are being modernised gradually. The keys and locks of the Student Village blocks 10, 12 and 14 were changed to the iLoq S5 system in 2023.At the moment, 74% of the Foundation’s apartments are using new electronic locking systems (72% in 2022).

TYS invests in architecturally interesting new construction and pays adequate attention to cultural-historically significant and protected buildings.