Nordens Ark

Biodiversity is the heart of Nordens Ark. The work we do is directly linked to sustainable development and several governmental environmental goals, such as a rich plant and animal life, living forests, a fertile agricultural landscape and thriving wetlands.

Our effort to conserve endangered animals would lose much of its meaning if the ecosystems where the animals belong are destroyed and disappear. The world’s ecosystems are threatened by environmental toxins, eutrophication, fragmentation and overexploitation. Most of these are caused directly by human development and lifestyles; things we do in our everyday lives that consume energy, burn fossil fuels, emit chemical substances, and consume natural resources. These are factors that we can directly influence by changing our habits, big and small, to more environmentally friendly alternatives.

At Nordens Ark we work hard to reduce our own impact on the environment and environmental considerations must be factored into all decisions regarding daily operations, research, and teaching.

Since 2010 we have been environmentally certified by the Swedish Environmental Base and continuously strive to reduce the environmental impact of our organisation. This means that we have an environmental management system that maps our environmental impact, plans, implements and evaluates environmental improvements. Based on this we set long-term environmental goals so that we work to an even greater extent towards a sustainable future.

Our primary focus in working to limit our environmental impact is by reducing electricity and fuel consumption, minimizing the amount of waste, increasing the proportion of eco-labelled products in our purchases, and guiding our visitors towards increased environmental awareness.

• We also acquired a recycling centre where, in collaboration with Rambo, we sort all kinds of waste
• Electric heating is gradually being replaced by more efficient heat exchange units
• We are replacing our transport fleet with electric vehicles
• We have electric bikes for staff use in the park to reduce petrol consumption
• We have developed a purchasing policy that steers towards environmentally friendly and ethical purchases – many of the goods in the restaurant are eco-labelled and the proportion of locally produced organic and fair trade goods is continually increasing.
• We are working to reduce our use of chemicals – for example, we replaced our old X-ray machine, which used photographic fluid, with a more modern machine that develops the images digitally.