Eelis Rytkönen chosen to lead Ylva’s corporate responsibility work: aiming for carbon neutrality in 2025
15.6.2023
D.Sc. Eelis Rytkönen will be appointed as Ylva’s Chief Impact Leader and a member of the company’s management team on 13 September 2023. Rytkönen is coming to Ylva from NCC, where he has been in charge of corporate responsibility for the Property Development business area in Finland.
At Ylva, Rytkönen will be responsible for developing the sustainability of business operations and ensuring the company’s goal of carbon neutrality in 2025 is achieved. Last year, Ylva’s total emissions fell by 47 per cent, and the company’s properties have been fully carbon neutral since the beginning of 2022.
“To achieve our goals, we must successfully commit our customers and both our lines of business to reducing emissions. I am proud and happy to know that Eelis Rytkönen will be leading our efforts. He brings with him experience and practical know-how of cooperative design, as well as science-based knowledge of the sustainability challenges facing the real estate and restaurant sectors, along with solutions to those challenges,” says Ylva’s CEO Leea Tolvas.
“Ylva’s commitment to sustainability is crystal clear. I have been following their activities – the opening of the Myöhä vegan restaurant and, especially, the solutions developed as part of the Lyyra project – with great interest. Ylva’s history and ownership structure are unique, and the demand for promoting sustainability comes right from that ownership. I am excited to become part of a company with such a high ceiling for ambition,” says Eelis Rytkönen.
Shaking up the conventions of the industry is at the heart of Ylva’s corporate responsibility work
Corporate sustainability has played an important role in Ylva’s business throughout the company’s existence. Its pioneering work to promote the sustainable food revolution, carbon-neutral construction and inclusivity at construction sites have garnered attention and praise on both the national and international stages.
“We are a company that has an outsized impact and that leads by example in both of the sectors we participate in. Impact is a key component in our corporate responsibility work, as demonstrated by our new Chief Impact Leader role,” Tolvas says.
Rytkönen hopes to emphasise that it is possible to do things more responsibly in the construction and restaurant sectors while still being profitable.
“Improving space utilisation is one example of how the interests of the environment and business go hand in hand. The more efficiently you make use of space, the less strain you put on the environment and the lower your need to build new spaces,” Rytkönen says.
More information:
Leea Tolvas
CEO
+358 50 400 0323
leea.tolvas@ylva.fi
