Sustainability in Finnish Rehabilitation Centers

The aim of this paper is to introduce the present state of sustainable development strategies of rehabilitation centers in Finland. Methodology: The triple bottom line approach to sustainability is used to understand the sustainability of Finnish rehabilitation centers. The data from the rehabilitation centers is gathered with walkthrough audits and interviews in 6 case rehabilitation centers in Finland. Additionally a sustainability matrix was filled using the data from the web-pages of all 100 Finnish rehabilitation centers. Findings: The findings suggest that the importance of sustainability related issues is well acknowledged in Finnish rehabilitation centers but they lack the knowledge, ability and monetary resources to carry out large scale alterations in the premises and processes. Thus improving the sustainability should be done in small steps and must be well justified in monetary terms. Research limitation: The research findings are limited to Finnish context and the material from interviews and walk-through audits to just 6 Finnish rehabilitation centers. Still, the experiences from other Finnish rehabilitation centers suggest that the results may quite well be generalized to at least the Finnish context. Originality/value: Sustainability of rehabilitation centers has not been studied neither in the Finnish or international context, even though the realm of rehabilitation is vast and the sustainability related challenges remarkable.