From the very beginning, we have thought about all our choices at Ego from an environmental perspective. We recycle, use recycled furniture and tableware, save electricity, minimise waste and favour locally produced ingredients.

When we started to design Ego’s interior, we immediately decided to choose recycled furniture and lighting. We love giving old items a new life, and we also wanted to challenge the idea that everything in a new restaurant should be brand new.

Our goal was to lower our carbon footprint in every possible way, so we also chose recycled tableware for Ego. Instead of buying new crockery in the future, we will use recycled crockery or restore our existing pieces. Restoration adds several years to the average life of plates. We used to have white tablecloths, but we decided to abandon them because their washing and the related logistics burden the environment.

We have also thought about our kitchen from an ecological perspective. In cooking, we favour Finnish and Nordic ingredients – and we are constantly working to increase the proportion of products of local origin. We also monitor the sustainability of the production and transport of ingredients when making choices.

All our kitchen appliances use smart technology and consume very little energy. We also take good care of all our appliances to make sure that they last as long as possible. Before replacing broken appliances with new ones, we find out whether they can be mended. If we need to buy new ones, we choose sustainably manufactured products.

Waste is often discussed in connection with restaurants – and rightly so! We aim to minimise waste at all stages of cooking. We use ingredients as efficiently as possible and avoid cooking methods and serving options that generate waste by making use of only part of the product, for example. Like all the other Olo Collection restaurants, we monitor food waste daily using a special set of scales.