Skip to main content

Forest -based models for compensating tourism carbon footprint - case northeastern Finland

MAHIS

The growth of tourism and increased environmental awareness among people has made the sustainability of the tourism industry an increasingly important goal. Particularly from a climate change perspective, tourism is a challenging entity. Travel accounts for a large part of the carbon footprint of tourism, which is problematic in regions such as northern Finland, whose accessibility is mainly based on air travel, especially for international tourists.

Tourism sector has taken steps to promote sustainability, and low-carbon solutions are being developed in tourism companies and municipalities. Despite measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is challenging to reach truly carbon neutrality in tourism. This is one of the reasons why interest in offsetting emissions has increased. The aim of the MAHIS project is to map forest-based domestic carbon compensation models which are suitable for the tourism sector. In the long run, the domestic/local alternative to offset emissions caused by tourism will bring competitive and image advantage to the tourism target markets.

There is currently high interest in the domestic carbon offsetting, but reliable research-based information is needed to launch operations more widely. Transparency and reliability must be at the heart of operations and communication in order to achieve broad acceptability. Finnish forests have the opportunity to create solutions for the needs of the tourism industry while developing a new service business based on natural environments, such as carbon offsetting. This will also contribute to new business opportunities for agricultural and forestry companies.

The objectives and activities of the project are divided into four separate work packages, with key measures:

- Making a pre-study of existing tourism carbon compensation models and their application regionally

- Creating an assessment framework for assessing regional compensation models related to tourism

- Mapping the views of tourists and businesses on carbon offsetting models for tourism, for example, whether the compensation method or destination matters

- Planning a local compensation model for the region of Northeastern Finland

The project will be carried out in Kuusamo, Taivalkoski and Pudasjärvi from 1.1.2021 to 28.2.2022. The work is conducted in collaboration with Natural Resources Institute Finland, Naturpolis Ltd and the University of Oulu. Additionally, the activities are done in close collaboration with Pudasjärvi Development Ltd, tourism associations in the region, the timber industry association, Finnish Forest Centre and other forestry operators. The total budget of the project is EUR 299,745.52. The Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment of Northern Ostrobothnia has provided funding for the project (European Union contribution + state contribution) from the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 of Mainland Finland.