Compensate and Student Union JYY collaborate to offer all lunch customers of restaurant Ilokivi the possibility to offset the carbon emissions of their meal starting from Wednesday 20.11.2019. Compensation is possible with both a single lunch and a 10 meals ticket book. The compensation prices are set by the carbon emissions of the meal, not its price.
The development co-operation “dev co-op” lunch, raising funds for the Student Union’s development cooperation work, can also be compensated similarly.
Compensate directs the compensation payments fully to carbon sink projects. Compensate is looking for efficient and sustainable ways to capture carbon in the atmosphere, funding reforestation and forest protection projects.
JYY acts as pioneer, following new strategy
Restaurant Ilokivi, owned by the Student Union JYY, is the first Jyväskylä business to offer its customers the possibility of immediate carbon compensation on a transaction.
Introducing Compensate and its carbon emission offset possibility is one of the actions that the Student Union is taking to promote its strategic goals, set in September 2019.
– Diversified operators, such as JYY, play an important part in combating climate change in Finland. The students are not only an important customer group but also the owners of the Business unit of JYY via the Student Union membership. They expect JYY to act responsibly and do its part in minimizing the effects of climate change, says Jenni-Mari Penttinen, the Chief Financial & Chief Service Officer of the Business unit of JYY.
The business unit of JYY is willing to lead the way when it comes to responsible choices.
– We hope that our example will encourage other businesses to find solutions to combat the climate change both locally in Jyväskylä and on a nationwide scale. We are working to offer carbon compensation possibility also in our apartment rental functions as soon as possible, continues Jenni-Mari Penttinen.
The Students’ Ilokivi bears responsibility – Compensate offered together with Dev co-op
The carbon footprint compensation has been introduced as a new means for the responsible consumer lately. Ilokivi has been looking at the world from a sustainable point of view for a long time.
– In restaurant Ilokivi, responsibility has been a key element in terms of development co-operation, fair trade, local food, certified fish and energy saving kitchen equipment, says Kati Lemiläinen, the Ilokivi restaurant manager.
Kati Lemiläinen has been bringing forward the sustainability on the Ilokivi lunch buffet in many new ways. Leftover food sales, disposing of the large milk dispenser units, and only using eggs from uncaged chickens are all recent efforts. Vegan food on a lunch buffet is still a rarity, but it’s a daily procedure in Ilokivi.
– Compensate introduction is yet another way to make our business more sustainable. Even the execution is familiar from the dev-op lunch by JYY, where a small supplement can bring about lots of good, says Kati Lemiläinen.
The students are believed to greet the new, more sustainable way of having meals offered by JYY with joy.
– Compensation payments are a great way for the Ilokivi customer to make a bit more sustainable choices in the everyday. One can even “supercompensate” in the Ilokivi restaurant from the environmental and the humanitarian point of view, if the customer chooses to buy the traditional Development co-operation lunch and pay the Compensate payment, says Topias Peltonen, the Chair of the JYY Board. – Responsibility is a key value in the Student Union strategy, which is now wonderfully represented in our business affairs and services available to the student.
Currently, JYY supports a local development and culture association Aurora Borealis, working in Nepal helping young people in their higher education studies. A popular way of showing support for the co-operation project is to buy lunch tickets with the development cooperation extra in Ilokivi or volunteering in the JYY dev-co-op fundraising events.