Property development

We carry out construction projects and develop the service networks of our campuses in cooperation with our customers. It is important for us that the end result serves the users not only today, but also in the future. We aim to ensure that our new buildings as well as renovated buildings are healthy, safe and comfortable for people and the environment.

Our customers also have their own environmental and sustainable development goals, and we want to help them achieve them. Cooperation plays a significant role. With the help of the joint development process we have developed, we have been able to take a very customer-driven approach to the planning and design of premises.

We understand the value of our properties and respect their cultural heritage. When changes in the focus of our operations, for example, lead to us selling properties, we find buyers who have the same respect for the properties and the desire to develop them as part of the urban environment.

Research and development

Our vision is to be Europe’s most valued campus developer. To achieve this objective, we actively invest in research and development. We want to understand the increasingly rapid changes happening in the world and their effects on our business, and make the latest opportunities available to our customers.

One change that affects our operations is related to the changing perceptions of learning. This involves a shift from lecturing to phenomenon based learning and learning by doing. This entails creating classrooms and lecture halls that support a more active role for students. At the same time, the perception of learning premises is becoming broader. Spaces such as lobbies, corridors and restaurants can be used as learning environments.

Product responsibility

Turvalliset ja terveelliset tilat sekä terveellinen sisäilma kaikissa rakennuksissamme on meille erittäin tärkeää. Yhteistyössä Työterveyslaitoksen kanssa kehittämämme sisäilmatoimintamalli on käytössä kaikilla kampuksillamme. Arvioimme sisäilmatoimintamallia ja sen kehittämistarpeita säännöllisesti asiantuntijoiden kanssa. Päivitimme sisäilmatoimintamallia vuonna 2019 entistä enemmän painottumaan ennakoivaan toimintaan. Pyrimme löytämään säännöllisillä ennakoivilla tarkastuskierroksilla mahdolliset riskipaikat ja -rakenteet ja korjaamaan ne jo ennen kuin ongelma syntyy. Alla on raportoitu sisäolosuhteemme kaikissa kohteissamme vuoden viimeisen päivän tilanteen mukaan.

Inner conditions

Campus safety

More and more attention has been paid to the safety of campuses in recent years. We work in close cooperation with the universities to ensure the safety of all university campuses. The goal of campus safety work is to fulfil all statutory requirements applying to both the owner and the tenant of the property. We are constantly developing our models of operation to be able to ensure a safe working and studying environment.

Together with the safety personnel of universities, we develop the procedures for addressing deviations, providing feedback and monitoring. The objective of compiling statistics of safety observations and monitoring them is to bring up observations, which in turn are intended for prompt the person analysing them to ask questions, to verify the effectiveness of safety work and to show the direction of developments.

Last year, we had a one-day training session for safety personnel. The training was participated in by security personnel and campus managers of SYK, as well as the universities working with these matters.

We have supplemented the reporting for 2019 with the monitoring of campus safety as part of our product responsibility.

A proactive measure means that there is a matter that may materialise into a risk in the future if it is not addressed. We try to efficiently identify these, thus preventing the creation of risks. Number of proactive measures in 2019: 39.

A report refers to observations and reports by users that are associated e.g. with deficiencies in equipment and may cause hazardous situations. Number of reports in 2019: 9.

Examples of safety deviations include insufficient sanding of outdoor areas in winter, or other deficiencies observed in outdoor areas that may cause problems. Furthermore, a safety deviation in the fire and rescue section may be an observation of a detector or alarm being out of order. A safety deviation is an event recorded by a member of the safety organisation. Number of safety deviations in 2019: 491.

Local communities

Local communities are important cooperation partners for us, for example, in connection to construction projects in Finland. When there are active communities in the neighbourhood, they can be involved and express their views already during the design phase of the construction project. We want to take the local communities’ views into account as far as possible to achieve the best possible result when constructing new buildings or renovating existing ones.

Last year, we supported children and young people in Finland and outside the EU: through the Shadeshares project, we supported the leisure activities of young YMCA members in Finland and, through WorldVision, their employment projects in a Kenyan slum. We also participated in supporting the Finnish Kapua project that in 2019 helped with the education of women and handicapped persons in Ethiopia together with the Threshold Association and the Family Federation of Finland.

We are also involved in local cultural initiatives and we support biodiversity on our campuses. We believe that even small acts that benefit nature and the environment can make people happier and reduce the carbon load, and everyone can enjoy an attractive environment. In 2018 and 2019, we implemented a planting project together with the Tampere Teacher Training School and a local association to support biodiversity. The project involved planting a meadow to create a habitat for Anacampsis fuscella, an endangered moth species, at the site of the Teacher Training School in Tampere’s Nekala district. We carried out the project in cooperation with the teachers and students of the Teacher Training School and the local association Villiniitty.

Customer cooperation

Our customers include universities as well as businesses and other organisations that operate on campuses. In 2019, 89 per cent of our revenue came from universities and 11 per cent from other customers.

In accordance with our customer promise, we support the success of universities by developing our properties into attractive campuses. Customer relationship management is part of our company’s strategy and it is aimed at ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction.

We aim to maintain regular contacts with our customers and hold regular monthly meetings with our major customers to discuss and review matters related to facilities and operations. We also have a feedback channel regarding property maintenance. The feedback and its processing are actively monitored. We also engage in a dialogue with our stakeholders on social media.

In addition to the channels mentioned above, we also have an ongoing customer relationship monitoring system and we survey our customers’ satisfaction with our operations by means of a more extensive annual survey. The survey is also aimed at identifying areas where our operations should be improved.

In late 2019, we carried out a customer survey and received a total of 198 responses. SYK’s overall average score was 3.6 on a scale of 1–5. Some 85 per cent of the respondents considered our role as a developer of university areas to be fairly important or very important, and 26 per cent felt that our operations have improved during the past year (2018: 30 per cent).

Breakdown of customer groups by revenue in 2019

Breakdown of customer groups, excluding universities, in 2019

Sustainable development indicators