The City of Turku’s ‘Climate changemakers’ campaign highlights people from Turku tackling climate change in their day-to-day lives. Climate changemakers work in companies and organisations committed to help the city to achieve carbon neutrality by 2029. TYS’s Climate changemaker is Building Services Engineer Matias Salo.
Building Services engineer Matias Salo develops building technologies and different energy solutions for TYS’s student apartments. TYS aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2029, and mitigating climate change is one of foundations key sustainability objectives. Most of the carbon footprint of the foundation’s properties result from energy consumption and waste management. Measures to reduce the carbon footprint include increasing the use of renewable energy, for example.
“Sustainable and energy-efficient living means comfortable living. The idea is not to reduce the comfort of living for the tenants but rather the opposite. We aim to develop solutions that reduce the energy consumption of the buildings. This result is an apartment that is even cosier than before”, Matias explains.
Matias says he has always been interested in developing different technological solutions. TYS continuously invests in various devices and solutions that improve energy efficiency. For example, TYS’s housing locations have been equipped with solar panels, different systems for storing and optimising energy, as well as heat pumps.
“Energy-efficient solutions have been used to successfully reduce the carbon footprint of living and produce energy that will be at the disposal of the end users, i.e., TYS’s tenants. A good example of this are solar panels TYS has installed at various housing locations. In 2023, we had a total of 1222 solar panels that produced 321 MWh of energy, an impressive amount that corresponds to the annual consumption of approximately 16 detached one family houses with electrical heating. At the moment, TYS has 1670 solar panels at four housing locations”, Matias says.
Tenants are also encouraged and guided concerning small day-to-day decisions they can reduce the carbon footprint of living. For example, TYS actively communicates to the tenants tips on how to save water and energy.
“It is interesting and rewarding to see how housing has been made more energy-efficient by adopting these solutions and engaging in cooperation with tenants. It is up to all of us to commit to the future carbon-neutral Turku. We can all take action to contribute to the achievement of this objective, for example by reducing water consumption, enhancing waste sorting, using more drift shops”, Matias describes.
Climate changemakers Campaign
The Climate changemakers campaign aims to highlight the day-to-day climate work done in companies and organisations in the Turku region. Climate changemakers are persons who work in companies and organisations committed to ambitious climate objectives.
Employers of the Climate changemakers, including TYS, have signed a Climate City Contract Commitment with the City of Turku. They strive to reduce their emissions in various ways in their operations, such as construction, energy consumption and transport. By doing this, they are helping Turku achieve its own carbon neutrality objective as well. Turku aims to achieve carbon neutrality in 2029, at the 800th anniversary of the city.
The scale of Climate changemakers ranges from a sales and marketing manager of a music festival to a building services engineer and from a construction manager to a university vice principal.
In February, you may encounter Climate changemakers on the streets of Turku, as well as in social media. You can read about all Climate changemakers on the City of Turku website (in Finnish)3 at: www.turku.fi/ilmastonmuuttajat
