The sustainable life in Lappeenranta

Kirjoittanut Zheng Zhang  Luotu 02.05.2016

What is sustainability I often I asked myself. Sustainability was just a concept before I came to Finland, and I did not know what it is exactly. However, when I arrived in Lappeenranta, a beautiful natural city in Finland, the sustainability is not the concept anymore instead it is a life style penetrating into my daily life little by little.

The most incredible thing about Lappeenranta is that it is not like the typical European cities full of historical and elegant architecture, but surrounded by a wonderful natural beauty including Lake Saimaa, the purest lake in the world. As a said before, water, sky, forest with tall and straight trees and the lovely people have make me fall in love with this city deeply and sincerely.

Put aside the nature, the way that people live also gave me a big surprise. For them sustainability is integrated into their daily life. Especially, in the university, I feel like everything is sustainable and valuable around me.

The first thing is the green wall located beside the walking hall, which is made by the real leaves that can absorb the carbon dioxide and release the fresh oxygen. It is an amazing that the wall conducts this green and sustainable innovation. In this spot, we can sit, read, relax and enjoy the nature even inside the building.

Also, the glass corridor from where we can see multiple tall trees and grass is one of the most pleasant places at LUT. The structure of my university architecture makes the nature and sustainability a part of it and shows the sustainable way to everyone in the university silently. In particular, the green color itself has a positive and calming psychological effect on humans. 

In addition to the natural beauty, we visualize the sustainability through digital approach, which refers to the straightforward statistics and graph to prove and demonstrate the remarkable result within each month such as the water consumption, the electricity consumption, and the reduction of energy assumption through different sustainable actions and so on.  From my point of view, the contrast and analysis of the energy issues not only show the result of current achievement, but also let people think about the sustainable-leading way in the future.

In the technology perspective, the windmill near the school and the solar panels above the building make the significant contribution to the energy reduction in the general way and improve the environment.

By and large the sustainable way must be the best way and the only way for Lappeenranta to go and develop in the future. At the same time through sustainability Lappeenranta can be the one of most green cities around the world. We can all contribute by voting Lappeenranta for the public’s favorite at the WWF’s Earth Hour City Challenge at www.welovecities.org. Beside giving upgrades we can also share what we love about Lappeenranta in social media with hashtag #welovelappeenranta.