Honka’s sustainability programme: We are building the future

Sustainability is more than just a word for us. It is a choice, one that we at Honka make every day. Our choices are guided by human and natural vitality. We are continuously looking for new ways to further improve our work, and we report openly on our progress. At Honka, we focus on building the future.

Honka’s sustainability programme, We are building the future, is based on the changes we have identified in our operating environment, our ethical principles, the recognised expectations the staff and other stakeholders, and understanding the customer in our main markets.

Employee wellbeing
and motivation

Responsible purchasing

Eco-friendly
production

Sustainable
construction

Healthy and
safe living

Employee wellbeing and motivation

At the heart of all of Honka’s operations are contented and committed employees who feel that their work makes a difference. Honka was founded by the Saarelainen brothers in 1958. We are still a Finnish family company and international pioneer, a close group of professionals devoted to wood as a material.

Our values – passionate, caring and bold – encapsulate the Honka spirit.
Positive resources in the 2021 wellbeing at work survey included having meaningful work to do, and co-workers’ support.
We will improve our management policies and support our supervisors in their duties by offering different types of coaching.
We will conduct an annual wellbeing at work survey and use the results to define measures for improvement and monitor their implementation.
We systematically improve occupational safety in all our operations.

Responsible purchasing

Honka’s responsible activities stem, quite literally, from sustainably grown trees. Audits by independent parties at different stages of the delivery chain ensure that the wood raw material comes from a forest in which the principles of sustainable development and biodiversity are respected.

We use renewable wood from Finnish sawmills as raw material for our logs. Our raw material is PEFC-certified, and we aim to increase the percentage of FSC-certified wood whenever more of it becomes available.
We will draw up strategies for different procurement categories and set out steps for more responsible purchasing.
We will review our supplier requirements regarding responsibility and add the requirement of using certified wood (windows, board, etc.).
We will also record supplier requirements for design and construction services and service providers.

Eco-friendly production

Honka log houses are built with decades of experience and expertise at our own factory in Karstula. We are continuously developing the material and energy efficiency of our production, and recyclability of materials.

Our operations are certified under the ISO 9001 quality standard and the ISO 14001 environmental standard.
Our production is largely automated; accurately dimensioned wooden elements ready to be installed make construction easier and reduce wastage at the construction site.
We use our wood raw material accurately, minimising waste. Any wasted wood material is used for heat energy production and recycled products.
In our factory and premises, we have switched to electricity that is generated without producing CO₂emissions.
We use recycled plastic for the logs’ protective packaging, and intensify recycling in our production processes.

Sustainable construction

A Honka log house is a lasting heritage for future generations. Construction is the most climate-friendly use of wood, because as trees grow, they bind carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the building for the duration of its long life cycle.

Log buildings act as efficient carbon sinks throughout their life cycle. The buildings we delivered in 2021 have sequestered 30,560,000 kg of (*CO2e carbon dioxide. This is equivalent to an average of 14,220 passenger cars’ annual CO2 emissions, or the annual carbon footprint of about 3,000 average Finns.
We will constantly improve the service life of our houses and choose high-quality, durable components and materials for them.
We work in the long term to improve the energy efficiency of our houses and to minimise their carbon footprint.
We will train our designers to take a more life cycle focused approach to design, and we will pay closer attention to functional spatial planning and accessibility requirements.
At the end of its life cycle, a timber frame and wooden structures can be made into other wood products, used as biofuel or converted into energy by burning.

Healthy and safe living

Honka is the world’s first industrial log house manufacturer and a leader in wood construction. We will continuously enhance the safety and health features of our houses.

We emphasise safety and health in the material and product choices of our houses.
Our lamellar log wall falls in the construction material category M1, low-emission products.
We use high-quality structural adhesives for our lamellar logs. They are M1-approved, which means they have low emissions and are safe to use.
We cooperate continuously with universities and research institutions to ensure that our structural solutions do not have moisture problems and remain safe also in future weather conditions.

Did you know that:

It takes less than a minute for the amount of raw tree material required for one log detached house to grow on a summer day. *

Trees bind carbon dioxide into themselves from the atmosphere. The buildings we delivered in 2021 have sequestered 30,560,000 kg of carbon dioxide.**This is equivalent to an average of 14,220 passenger cars’ annual CO2 emissions, or the annual carbon footprint of about 3,000 average Finns. ***

The antibacterial natural compounds of conifers eliminate bacteria and mould spores from the air and structures. This means that indoor air is healthy and that the structures are durable and free from moisture.

*) Based on the Natural Resources Institute Finland’s estimate on the annual growth of conifers.
**) Standards EN 15804:201 + A1 and EN 15804:201 + A2:2019
***) Traficom: average CO2 emissions of an average passenger car in Finland: 153.5 g/km, Statistics Finland: average annual mileage of passenger cars in Finland: 14,000 km

This is how we work – Honka’s ethical principles

Our ethical principles apply to all Honka employees regardless of their task or form of employment. These principles also apply to our partners.

Our ethical principles guide our actions in concrete terms along the path set out by Honka’s values.

Give us feedback or send us an improvement proposal

Efforts to operate responsibly in all we do demand concrete action and continuous improvement. Send us your greetings, tip or development idea to the Honka responsibility working group.

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