Responsibility is the way to work at Unica restaurants. Everyday choices and practical actions are decisive.
For us, responsibility is one of our most important values and it means taking full care of our customers, staff and the environment as well as our own economy.
We have the international environment certificate ISO 14001:2015 which ensures consistent responsibility management and documented processes in all our restaurants for the benefit of the environment.
Our most important theses from our responsibility program
- We help our customers to make better nutritional choices to support their own and the environment’s well-being with our selection.
- Our staff is our most important resource and we aspire to strengthen our care with everyday choices: equality, non-discrimination, good leadership, well-being and safety at work as well as education are in key position at Unica restaurants.
- We have aspired to encourage sustainable consumption and food production by emphasizing vegetarian and vegan food options on the menus of each of our restaurants and promoting their sales in different ways.
- We prefer a variety of domestic harvest season’s vegetables, roots, legumes, mushrooms and berries as well as potatoes, cereals or cereal toppings. We use Finnish meat and increase the supply of lake fish.
- We make every effort to reduce the use of energy and water as well as all waste generation. We sort and recycle.
- With regarding to food procurement, we are involved in the international responsibility program of our second owner, Compass Group which is based on UN principles of sustainable development and covers the entire supply chain.
- We take care of our own profitability and competitiveness so that we are also viable in the long term
Continuous developing
As part of our quality and environmental certification standards we make continuous developing to achieve our environmental goals
We are committed to
- recognizing and understanding the environmental aspects of operations, products and services.
- considering the environmental impacts of our operations, products and services
- Understanding how significant environmental aspects can be managed and controlled
- Setting clear goals for improving environmental performance
- Establishing an environmental policy and setting environmental goals
- Recognizing relevant statues, requirements of authorities as well as stakeholders and monitoring compliance with these obligations
- Developing the functionality of the system and improving environmental performance
Examples of our actions
- We refuel our cars with Neste MY diesel. Neste’s MY diesel is 100% renewable and it is made exclusively from waste and residues from industrial processes
- We only use Fairtrade organic coffee in our restaurants
- We are actively involved in various development projects that advance environmental actions
- We have been involved in co-operation projects to reduce food losses, such as the VÄKI -project with the University of Turku’s Brahea Center and Biolan, supported by the Ministry of the Environment. In the project we were developing and testing a composting system for households. The soil from the system was utilized in students’ urban cultivation. Unica has also been launching a biowaste measurement and monitoring system with Elomatic in Turku
- We have been involved in the carbon footprint project of the University of Turku’s Brahea Center in autumn 2019. As a result, we got a total carbon footprint of 188,231 kgCO₂eq / year for the normal portions and 10 550 kgCO₂eq / year for plant portions. The result was good in comparison with, for example, the corresponding values of the City of Turku and the result of the project guide us to further develop our offering and operations
- We have aspired to encourage sustainable consumption and food production for example by adding vegetarian and vegan options to the menus of each of our restaurants and raising them to the top of the list. We want to increase the share of vegetarian food by implementing tasty and genuinely pure alternatives made from raw materials and increasing their consumption by placing them first on the buffet lines.
- In 2019, We left out of use salad plates in all our restaurants and in the smallest units also trays to make the portion size easier to assemble according to the plate model. In addition, there is significantly fewer counters and water and electricity consumption reduces.
- Unica restaurants is involved in the ResQ collaboration. ResQ Club is a Finnish growth company fighting against food waste. Through their system, we sell food that might otherwise end up waste inexpensively. From the system we get real-time information on how much we have reduced CO₂ emissions in kilograms