Urakkamaailma adds sustainability as criterion for comparing renovation contractors

Alma Media’s Urakkamaailma has published a new feature in its service, which enables renovation contractors to showcase their own sustainability work and allows consumers to easily compare contractors based on sustainability. To the knowledge of Urakkamaailma, the solution is the first in the industry among similar marketplace platforms on European scale.

Enabling consumers to make sustainable choices in their renovations

The construction industry has been slow in waking up to sustainability, even though it is a big sector that emits environmental emissions. Consumers, on the other hand, feel that sustainability matters are important, and want to bring them to their own consumption habits. Alma’s Urakkamaailma is Finland’s largest marketplace for renovations, so the service also wants to be a forerunner in bringing sustainability to the fore in the industry.

“Urakkamaailma wants to be an innovator in renovation, and to be the first to do new things. Sustainability is becoming one of the decision-making criteria in the field of renovation and we want to accelerate this change. With this reform, we will be able to help consumers make sustainable choices in their renovations and provide a channel for contractors to communicate their own sustainability,” says Kalle Koivuniemi, Founder and Business Manager of Urakkamaailma and adds “We believe that when a large number of companies and individuals make small decisions, it will have an impact”.

Urakkamaailma began to explore and conceptualize this new feature for its service at the end of 2022, and this year has focused on developing a practical solution. The idea originated from a thesis related to sustainability studies, conducted by Urakkamaailma’s Content Manager Iiris Kansanen.

Contractor’s path to sustainability communication

Reliability and transparency are key values of Urakkamaailma, so highlighting sustainability is a natural development path. However, communication about sustainability may still be new to many companies in the renovation industry, as the majority of them, due to their size, are not affected by the current sustainability reporting obligations. “However, communicating about sustainability is increasingly a major part of the basic communications of companies due to consumer expectations, so we want to give companies an easy way to start or develop this way of thinking and support their communication work,” says Iiris Kansanen.

The contractor can upload various reports, presentations or certificates related to sustainability to their own company page in the service, as well as, for example, certificates of trainings attended by the staff. Urakkamaailma service helps, through clear examples, how to tell, for example, about the materials used in renovations and the fleet of cars used by the company. In addition, the service can demonstrate what distances the contractor is willing to make to the renovation sites. The system also recommends maximum distances. “In addition, we will publish a simple guide to sustainability communications, which hopefully will provide contractors with tips for their communications in any channel,” Kansanen describes.

Urakkamaailma continues sustainable conceptualization and development work together with Alma’s other housing services in consultation with customers, consumers and partners.

Explore Urakkamaailma (in Finnish).

More about Alma’s sustainability work in the latest sustainability report.

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