Responsibility at Heureka
Heureka's strategy includes a promise about our responsibility:
Ecological, social and financial sustainability guide all our activities.
Responsibility and sustainable development are part of our experience offering. Heureka constantly displays content that increases awareness of responsibility. For example, climate change, biodiversity and social responsibility are included in our exhibition content, program services and events.
Ecocompass
Heureka was granted an Ekokompass environmental certificate on 7 January 2023. The Ekokompass of the Finnish Nature Conservation Association is one of Finland's best-known industry-independent environmental systems, which is based on the international ISO 14001 standard.
Ecological responsibility in Heureka
Heureka's environmental promise
Science Center Heureka takes environmental aspects into account in all its operations and develops its operations to reduce harmful environmental effects. We encourage our staff and visitors to be ecological and sustainable. Heureka increases environmental awareness through its content.
Renewable energy
Heureka only uses domestic electrical energy produced with 100% renewable energy sources, and the heating method is 100% renewable geothermal energy. In autumn 2023, solar panels were installed on the roof of the extension part of Heureka, which can cover approximately 5% of Heureka's energy needs. In the future, the goal is to increase the number of solar panels at the same time as basic repair measures are carried out on the roof.
We have reduced energy consumption in many different ways, e.g. by lowering the temperature of our premises during the heating season and changing the lighting to LED lights. Our goal is to constantly find new ways to reduce our energy and electricity consumption.
Recycling
Sorting and recycling waste and minimizing material consumption are important to us. Ecology is a strong starting point guiding the design in all exhibition projects and other productions. Training has been organized for our employees on the environmental impact of various materials, purchases and related transportation.
Heureka's self-produced changing exhibitions are primarily designed to be recycled through export operations. The goal is for the exhibitions to travel to at least 2–4 different destinations after Heureka. In the planning, it is taken into account that the life cycle of the exhibitions should be about 10 years or even more. Heureka's exhibitions have been taken abroad since 1990.
Use of public transport
The carbon footprint calculations for 2021 and 2022 showed that well over half of Heureka's carbon footprint consists of the fact that the public comes to Heureka mainly in their own cars. We want to encourage everyone to come to Heureka by public transport. Heureka is easily accessible by train, for example, as it is only a few minutes' walk from Tikkurila train station to Heureka. Heureka is also easily accessible by bike from the surrounding area, and there is also a city bike station in front of Heureka.
Read more about our arrival instructions .
STF and Ekokompassi
For the sustainable development of the Finnish tourism industry, Visit Finland has developed the Sustainable Travel Finland (STF) program and label for the tourism industry. Heureka is in the program and is currently completing the STF degree.
Heureka was awarded Ekokompassi on January 7, 2023. Ekokompass's environmental program helps us implement environmental actions in Heureka in a targeted and planned manner. With it, we have built an environmental program with goals and measures to reduce environmental impacts and increase a positive footprint. The prepared environmental program was audited by an external auditor on November 7, 2023, and after the audit, Heureka was awarded the Ekokompass environmental certificate.
Heureka Shop's sustainable solutions
Heureka Shop's carbon footprint was 34 tons of CO2eq in the 2022 calculation. This corresponds to the annual carbon emissions of approximately 3–4 average Finns. More than half of the carbon footprint comes from sales products. The goal is to reduce environmental harm caused by products, e.g. increasing the number of environmentally certified sales products made from recycled materials in the selection.
The responsibility of the science restaurant
Heureka's Tiederavintola's offering is vegetarian-oriented and, for example, the soup and salad table is completely vegan. Kanresta Oy is responsible for the operation of Heureka Tiederavintola, which distributes its dividends to the Suomen Terveydelle collection of its owner, the Finnish Public Health Association. Donations are used to strengthen the most important pillars of Finnish public health for the benefit of pediatric research, mental health, cardiovascular diseases and the safety of the elderly. For a long time, Kanresta has had the right to use the Social enterprise mark as proof of the successful combination of business and social goals. Their goal is to reduce the burden on the environment by choosing sustainable development and systematically increasing the use of organic products. Kanresta has an Ekokompass environmental certificate. Kanresta belongs to the Portiat Luomu system and is a member of Pro Luomu.
Social responsibility at Heureka
Generally
Heureka is for everyone. Accessibility, equality and diversity are very important to us and guide all our activities. We research potential audiences and remove barriers to participation. With the help of participatory science center work, we contact underserved audience groups, expand participation and diversify our audience base. In the name of the Science Capital Accumulation Project (FINSCI), new means of interaction are being approached, e.g. audiences with an immigrant background.
Parity
Everyone is welcome at Heureka. We see diversity as a strength and we want everyone to be able to enjoy Heureka's experiences on their own. We have drawn up Heureka's internal equality and equality plan, the goal of which is to improve the equality of our organization's operations.
We are all jointly responsible for a safer Heureka. That's why we want everyone to follow our safe space principles at Heureka in the future, which we are currently drafting and which will be published e.g. on our website. Discrimination, harassment or bullying is not allowed in Heureka. Our staff has been instructed to intervene in such activities.
We pay attention to accessibility and equality and diversity in all our activities and in the exhibitions and other content we produce. Our staff has actively participated in diversity training, which has been organized in the fall of 2023.
Accessibility and accessibility
We constantly pay attention to diversity in all our work. We make our communication so that it reaches different people in ways that are accessible to them. Different groups are taken into account in our pricing and our operations are located in accessible facilities. Information and experiences are offered in Heureka through different senses. Obstacles to understanding have been removed by offering different language options - including plain language. We also consider different learning styles in our operations.
More information about the accessibility of our facilities and services: link accessibility
Information about our digital accessibility can be found in our accessibility statement.
Financial responsibility in Heureka
Generally
The operation of the Science Center Heureka is the responsibility of the financial non-profit private Science Foundation Science Foundation sr. The purpose of the foundation is to promote general knowledge of science and scientific practice, the results and applications of science, as well as their effects and significance.
Tiedekeskussaätiö forms a group that includes two wholly owned subsidiaries of the foundation: Heureka Overseas Productions Ltd Oy, which manages the export operations of Heureka exhibitions, and Tiedekauppa Magneetti Oy, which has stores operating under the Heureka Shop name in Heureka and Kamppi shopping center and an online store.
The mainstays of the Science Center Foundation's finances are the grant from the city of Vantaa for operating expenses and the general grant from the Ministry of Education and Culture, which together cover about half of the annual funding. The most important income from the foundation's own operations is the income from admission tickets. Other significant revenues are partnership, sublease and science camp revenues.
Heureka's audience also affects the region's economy. According to research, each visitor to Heureka spends an average of around 50 euros on products and services outside of Heureka during their trip.
Heureka influences society by accumulating scientific capital in the spirit of lifelong and lifelong learning. Heureka builds the future of society based on researched information.