Sustainability

I used to lead this page with certificates on the wall. Lovely seals, plenty of admin. But a badge isn’t sustainability — it’s a photo of it.

So here’s the honest version instead: how Tour with Arto actually runs, day to day, told plainly enough that you can weigh it yourself. No smoke, no greenwash, and only the one small joke per section. Maybe two.

A word on the badges I used to have

I’ll be straight with you: I’ve stepped back from the formal sustainability certificates. Not because I stopped caring — the practices below were checked and audited against a rigorous international standard, and I still run every one of them. It’s the schemes themselves I’ve stepped away from: they ask a one-person company for the same fees, reporting and audits as a firm with hundreds of staff. Given the choice between spending that time and money on paperwork, or on actually running low-impact tours, I know which one does the planet more good. So I’ve put it here in plain words instead, and you can judge me on what I do. Fair?

We walk. That really is the whole idea

The most sustainable tour is the one that doesn’t need a tank of fuel to happen. Ours doesn’t. We explore Helsinki entirely on foot — no coach, no van, no shuttle — which makes the tour itself effectively carbon-neutral. The only emissions are the stories.

No engine idling by the kerb, no fumes between sights. Just good shoes, fresh Baltic air, and a city that was built for walking. Revolutionary, I know.

And it’s a walk for everyone: the whole route, rest stop and toilets included, is step-free and suits all ages and mobility levels. If a guest is hard of hearing, I make a point of standing where they can read my lips. Nobody gets left at the back.

Responsible guiding is part of it, too

Sustainability isn’t only about carbon and recycling — it’s about looking after the people right in front of you. I’m a qualified guide, holding the Finnish vocational guide qualification (matkaoppaan ammattitutkinto), and I keep my first-aid skills current with a valid EA1 certificate from the Finnish Red Cross. So if anything happens out on a walk, you’re in trained hands.

Every tour also opens with a quick, friendly safety word — the odd pickpocket, the cyclists who firmly own the bike lanes — so you can relax into the city instead of watching your back. Prepared, resilient and deeply practical. Very Finnish.

A safe space, on every single tour

Sustainability is about people feeling welcome, too — genuinely all of them. Every tour runs on the principles of a safer space, and it’s written into my terms in plain words: the tour is a safe place for everyone, however you identify — part of the LGBTQIA+ community, of any faith, any ethnicity, or a solo traveller of any gender. You are welcome exactly as you are.

That comes with zero tolerance for harassment, and a simple rule for the trickier corners of history — and Helsinki’s history has a few. My job isn’t to tell you what to think, but to give you both sides fairly, so you can weigh the facts and decide for yourself. You should leave a tour lighter than you arrived. That’s the whole point.

A small company keeps a small footprint

Being a one-Arto operation has its perks: there isn’t much to make unsustainable in the first place. What I do use, I try to choose well — and second-hand first.

My work phone was bought used rather than new, shipped with climate-compensated delivery — a perfectly good device kept in circulation instead of another one mined from scratch. My tour backpack is a GOT BAG, made entirely from recovered ocean plastic. At the home office, I sort and recycle everything the Finnish system takes — metal, glass, plastic, paper, batteries, used light bulbs, cardboard and bio — run low-flow taps, and never leave devices humming on standby. Small, boring, daily choices. They add up.

The website you’re reading is hosted in a data centre powered by 100% renewable electricity, so even this page costs the planet remarkably little.

And the office itself? Here Finland quietly does the heavy lifting for me: 96% of the country’s electricity is already carbon-neutral — nuclear, hydro, wind and biomass — one of the cleanest grids on Earth. Simply plugging in at a Helsinki desk is a low-carbon act.

Respecting the place — and the people who call it home

Helsinki isn’t a backdrop; it’s a living city, and I treat it like one. I steer guests toward local small businesses rather than the big chains, point the curious to Finland’s genuinely drinkable tap water (bring a bottle — refills at the rest stop are free and, frankly, delicious), and tell the city’s story with the care and accuracy it deserves.

And that story runs deep: architecture across the eras, the national epic of Kalevala, our sauna culture, the surprisingly strong historical standing of Finnish women, and the low-salt Baltic that quietly supports wildlife found nowhere else. For guests who want more nature than a city walk can offer, I point them to places like Nuuksio National Park — and how to enjoy them responsibly. Show a place respect, and it tends to show you its best side.

And so much more

Sustainability isn’t a finish line you cross once and certify. It’s a mosaic of small, everyday choices — the shoes over the coach, the second-hand phone over the new one, the honest word over the tidy badge.

I’d rather keep quietly getting those right than hang another seal on the wall. 

Come walk with me, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.