Sustainability

Humak has established its position as a university of applied sciences specialising in community development, cultural management and linguistic accessibility. We aim to increase our impact through the handprint of our education, with the goal of training professionals who champion humane action. 

Sustainable development goals are embedded throughout all our education: all graduates of UAS degree programmes take the shared sustainable development study modules, and the principles of responsibility are part of every course. Graduating students understand the sustainability goals of their field and can apply them in their professional role. Through our sustainability education, we aim to encourage critical thinking, ethical action, and to make sustainability part of every Humak graduate’s professional identity. 

In the Towards a sustainable world (5 cr) course, students learn to apply knowledge related to their own field to developing and establishing sustainable solutions and approaches. The course addresses values and ethics in expert work, as well as current social and ethical issues in sustainable development. 

In the Ecosocial culture and accessibility (5 cr) course, students become acquainted with the principles and knowledge base of sustainable development, especially from the perspective of Humak’s fields. The course defines social and cultural sustainability challenges and identifies the principles of accessible and responsible operations. 

We also offer sustainability studies through the Open University of Applied Sciences, and we continuously develop our offering to meet the demands of a changing world. 

Humak’s graduates work in fields where social and cultural sustainability are built: community work, cultural production, and linguistic accessibility. Every graduate carries with them sustainability competence that influences society long after graduation – that is Humak’s handprint. 

Our RDI activities aim to produce solutions to society’s sustainability and inclusion challenges and to advance the four Sustainable Development Goals we have chosen. For every project, we identify the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) it promotes, communicate them in project communications and report on the solutions we develop. Sustainability and ethical principles are taken into account throughout project processes, from planning and implementation all the way to reporting. Our work is guided by Arene´s sustainability criteria for responsible RDI activities (in Finnish), which cover ecological, economic, social and cultural sustainability as well as general principles of responsibility. 

Through our RDI activities, we especially strengthen communities, cultural sustainability and human competence – locally and internationally – and offer communities, organisations and businesses a responsible partner. 

Sustainability principles are taken into account in all development of operations and processes. We lead with appreciation, responsibility, equality, and courage, and both staff and students commit to acting in line with sustainable development. 

We want to be a work community where our values – community, responsibility, equality and humanity – are visible in everyday work, regardless of an employee’s geographical or social background. This is supported by the Have Your Say at Humak feedback channel, in use since 2022, through which every member of the Humak community can share their opinion, make development suggestions, or report deviations. Every message received through the channel is processed and given a response, so that anyone who contacts us can be sure of being heard. 

We act as an economically, ecologically and socially responsible employer. In addition to sustainability studies for students, Humak offers staff the opportunity to complete sustainability studies during working hours. Going forward, new staff induction will include the online course Accessibility as Part of a Responsible Work Community. In this way, we develop our staff’s sustainability competence and everyone’s ability to influence their own handprint and footprint. 

The wellbeing of everyone at Humak is of paramount importance in line with both sustainability and our core values, and we continue to develop it through low hierarchy, trust, and open interaction. We take part in HelsinkiMissio’s School to Belong programme, which aims to reduce loneliness in educational institutions. Our certificate shows that we have the competence and the will to address loneliness, so that no one is left alone. 

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint. In addition to reducing our own footprint, we support ecological sustainability and the preservation and growth of the vitality of our living environment. 

Operating across multiple locations poses challenges for precisely calculating our environmental impact and, indirectly, for reducing negative effects. However, we aim to take the sustainability perspective into account in all our decisions. We are updating our procurement and travel guidelines to define sustainability criteria more precisely for future activities. Our current travel policy already takes into account the environmental impact of air travel: the necessity of each flight is assessed individually, and public transport is used as the default choice. 

We have tracked our carbon footprint since 2019, as part of the shared carbon accounting of Finland’s universities of applied sciences. The calculation brings together emissions from properties, procurement and travel. Setting concrete emission-reduction targets is our next development step. 

Humak’s first sustainability report was published in September 2026. The report’s key figures and results are compiled in the infographic. 

The next sustainability report will be published in spring 2027.