Good examples from Linköping’s tourism industry

Get inspired by good examples from businesses within Linköping’s tourism industry on how to work with environmental sustainability.

Vårdnäs Hotell och Stiftsgård

At Vårdnäs Hotell och Stiftsgård, they employ nudging to encourage and guide guests towards sustainable choices through various methods such as encouraging the use of personal bottles, using fewer towels, serving on smaller plates and bowls. They see sustainability as their responsibility, and guests should not feel lectured on how to act sustainably during their stay.
They involve their staff in the business’s sustainability efforts through methods such as Plogging, which involves staff collecting litter together, fostering a sense of connection to their local area and the nature surrounding the establishment.

Has a clear foundation that the business should be sustainable, which they prominently showcase on their website. “Sustainability permeates the business and is not something special we work on; it is part of us.”
Everything Naturlogi’s guests encounter has sustainability at its core, from local food to books in the rooms about learning about sustainable development and the forest. As the following quote describes: “In a way, we don’t encourage guests to make sustainable choices during their stay; we simply remove all other choices.”

Flygvapenmuseum collaborates with Östgötatrafiken and offers cheaper entrance tickets to the museum if you travel by bus.
During school break activities for children visiting the museum, crafts are often made from leftover waste such as toilet rolls and milk cartons.
On one of the green areas outside the museum building, the lawn is allowed to grow all summer to attract insects.

Conferences booked at their hotels receive information about the climate impact of their conference after their visit to inspire sustainable choices.
With messages at the breakfast buffet like “satisfied stomachs, empty plates,” they encourage their guests to reduce food waste and actively measure the waste 3 times a day through a digital solution.

At Stångs Magasin, they use their menus to inform guests about their food philosophy by explaining how they focus on local food in the menu. They also often highlight the source of the ingredients, with vegetarian dishes at the top of the menu. “In our menus, the green plays the leading role, not the protein.”
They actively work to reduce food waste through different methods, including using the Karma app to sell food that might otherwise become waste and having a lunch menu that applies throughout the week, reducing lunch waste.

At Restaurang Jord, sustainability is part of their DNA, which is reflected in how they handle ingredients. The focus is on local and locally produced products and working with whole ingredients so that nothing goes to waste is their philosophy. By picking large quantities of ingredients when they are in season, which they can then dry and ferment, they can also use these ingredients at other times of the year.
When choosing the location for the restaurant, Valla Berså was selected, which is a zero-energy house with solar energy and many other sustainable solutions. Additionally, they have a good dialogue with the property owner, which facilitates the development of the restaurant’s sustainability efforts.

Gamla Linköping actively works with environmental sustainability through its cultural-historical mission. The museum is part of the national gene bank work, which means preserving old species of plants and animals that otherwise risk disappearing. Through POM (the Program for Cultivated Diversity), the museum serves as a local clone archive for unique cultural plants from Östergötland. This is shared with visitors by selling cuttings, seeds, apple cider, sheepskins, and vegetables at their visitor center & museum shop. In this way, the open-air museum contributes to the preservation of biological diversity while conveying cultural heritage.
For new furniture acquisitions for the business, Linköping Municipality’s furniture staircase is used, which involves obtaining furniture in the following order: 1. Reuse, 2. Repair and renovate, 3. Buy reused, 4. Buy new.
Part of their educational activities focuses on teaching about biological diversity and the importance of preserving various species, reflected in the animals they care for.

At HaMa Adventures, the forest is an important resource for their high-ropes course experience. They actively work to preserve and keep the forest as untouched as possible, and during the construction of adventure courses, they use recycling where possible and are careful not to harm nature with their construction methods.
They believe that creating experiences in nature and getting more people to be active and be in nature can also create a ripple effect, so more people can learn to care more for nature and spend more time in it.
Since 2025, HaMa Adventures has collaborated with Naturlogi to offer unique dining experiences. Meals are prepared over an open fire in the forest, focusing on locally produced and environmentally friendly ingredients. Suppliers are consciously chosen from the local area—often farmers, food artisans, or their own cultivation. This focus on sustainable food production gives HaMa Adventures visitors an experience where adventure in nature is combined with care for local heritage and the environment.

An important part of their sustainability work is informing and including staff in the issues, and Scandic Frimurarehotellet does this during the introduction of new employees as well as their environmental group with representatives from all departments who can bring information to and from their regular meetings.
One of their focus areas is also reducing food waste, which they work on in several different ways. This includes using leftovers from the breakfast buffet for other meals they serve at lunch and dinner. Croissants that are left are, for example, used to create afternoon snacks for visiting conferences.

To encourage guests to travel more sustainably, they offer bicycles that guests can borrow for free to get around the city and leave their cars at the parking. They also continuously work on providing charging stations for electric cars and plan to increase the number of spaces.
In the green areas around the hotel, they have created flower beds to attract butterflies and bees to promote biodiversity.

Actively collaborates with other Scandic hotels in Linköping on the reuse of furnishings by passing on furniture that is no longer used. When something needs to be renovated or purchased, they always check with the other hotels if there is a surplus of a larger item that they can take over.
They advertise shop food that risks becoming too old in the app Too Good To Go for sale. People with the app can then book the food and come to the hotel and buy it at a reduced price, instead of the food becoming waste.