Sustainability

We take sustainability into account at every turn when organizing Our Festival. We pride ourselves in our long tradition of considering environmental responsibility and promoting equality and accessibility in the art music industry.

Environment

The environment is considered in everything we do at Our Festival. We constantly pay attention to our environmental impact and how to reduce it, and we strive to promote environmental friendliness in our framework – partners, artists and our audience.

In 2016 Our Festival took on the Ekokompassi environmental management system. The festival reports on its environmental impact systematically and annually in the Ekokompassi framework to monitor and diminish our environmental impact in a goal-oriented manner. Ekokompassi certificate shows that we have fulfilled the criteria set by Ekokompassi, ranging from complying with environmental legislation to building an environmental program and reporting on it. Our Festival has had the Ekokompassi certificate, audited every three years, since 2016. Our Festival has also been granted the Sustainable Travel Finland label as a recognition of long-term work for sustainable tourism.

Our Festival strives towards carbon neutrality. Our goal is to be a carbon-neutral festival in 2025. To meet this goal, in 2022-24 the festival is running a project titled the Transition. Funded by the Kone foundation, within the framework of this project we are looking for ways to operate carbon-neutrally in the third sector of the performing arts.

A considerable part of Our Festival’s environmental impact comes from you – our audience. By paying attention to the choices you make during your festival visit, you can help us reach our sustainability goals:

Food. Eat vegetarian food, which has a significantly lower environmental impact compared to a meal containing meat. The artists and staff of Our Festival eat pescovegetarian diet at our catering. Our Festival works with catering providers focused on organic and local food as well as fair trade products.
Arrival. The festival is easily accessible by public transport from Helsinki and Tampere regions, or by bicycle or on foot if you’re already close. Prefer carpooling if you choose to travel by car. It is oftentimes difficult to avoid flying when coming to Finland. Plan your visit so that you can stay longer, if you fly, and if you have the option, consider traveling by land via Stockholm or Tallinn and take a ferry for the final leg.
Waste. Recycle your waste and never throw trash into nature.
Water. Bring your own water bottle to keep hydrated. Your own bottle is a more environmentally friendly option than disposable cups that become waste. Especially in hot weather, we make sure that there are water points at our venues, and Finnish tap water is excellent quality for filling up anywhere.

Accessibility

It is important to us to ensure that the events of the festival are as easily accessible as possible to everyone, regardless of background or different special needs. If you have questions about the accessibility of any of the festival’s events, or development proposals related to the accessibility of Our Festival, do not hesitate to be in touch with us. The contact person responsible for the accessibility of Our Festival is the festival’s executive director Petra Piiroinen, and she can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 041 548 7098 (weekdays 10-16).

Our Festival spreads to diverse concert venues around Lake Tuusula. There are differences in the accessibility of concert venues. Some of the concert venues are historic homes, the yards of which may have uneven terrain and stairs and thresholds in the interior. In some of the concert venues, accessibility has been thoroughly taken into account. Accessibility information for each concert venue can be found on the Concert Venues -page.

Personal assistants
An assistant for a disabled concert guest, a support person for a concert guest with mental health rehabilitation or a memory-impaired concert guest, and an interpreter for a concert guest who needs an interpreter can always attend our Festival’s events free of charge. The assistant must have the skills to help the client when necessary. The need for an assistant does not need to be separately proven.

When buying an advance ticket, the assistant ticket must be redeemed when buying the advance ticket. To do this, please contact [email protected] and tell us which concert or concerts you are coming to, and we will send you a one-time use code for redeeming the free ticket for the online store purchase.

If you have already purchased your ticket and need a ticket for an assistant, please contact our office either by e-mail [email protected] or by phone 041 548 7098 (weekdays 10-16), and we will arrange a seat for the assistant at the concert.

Assistance dogs are welcome in most of our concert spaces.

Kaikukortti
Our Festival is participating in Järvenpää municipality’s Kaikukortti scheme. If you have a Kaikukortti, you can get free admission tickets to the festival’s concerts.

We develop the different aspects of the festival’s sustainability and accessibility in a purposeful and planned manner, and your feedback about the shortcomings you notice at the festival is very valuable to us. You can reach us by email at [email protected] or by phone at 041 548 7098 (weekdays 10-16). You can also give anonymous feedback about the festival through the audience questionnaire distributed annually after the festival.