Strong Expertise for the Sustainability Team – Mervi Huuhtanen Joins as a Advisor

Mervi Huuhtanen has joined Envitecpolis as a sustainability specialist. Mervi brings strong sustainability expertise, which will be widely utilised to meet the various needs of our clients – including building sustainability programmes, sustainability reporting, and sustainability communications.

Mervi’s background is in the textile industry, where she worked for over 20 years, with the last several years focused firmly on sustainability.

"I’m a trained clothing design technician, a qualification that closely resembles today’s bachelor-level fashion design degree. I’ve worked especially with technical and functional clothing. Through the textile industry, I became familiar with sustainability work – first it took a finger, and now the whole hand. I applied to Envitecpolis because I find sustainability work important and extremely interesting," says Mervi.

In the clothing industry, sustainability is shaped by global operations, highlighting issues that are well managed in Finland but pose challenges elsewhere.

"When suppliers and subcontracting are based abroad – in countries where labour legislation and workplace culture are very different from Finland – actions to ensure responsibility become vital. Supplier reviews, commitments, and audits became familiar practices in my previous work," Mervi continues.

From Client to Consultant

During her career, Mervi has also sat on the other side of the table – as a client.

"In previous roles, I gained a strong understanding of what is expected of companies now and in the future. I didn’t do everything myself – we also bought expertise from consulting firms. In my current role, I help food sector companies identify, articulate, and improve their own sustainability efforts. I can help in big or small ways – always based on the client’s needs. The idea is to free up company leadership to focus on core business," Mervi explains.

"My principle is to do the job so well that I would buy it myself. I approach my work with ambition and aim to bring the value that the client expects from me and our sustainability team," Mervi adds.

At Envitecpolis, the demand for sustainability services has been steadily growing. Senja Arffman, Head of the Sustainability and Environmental Division, is pleased with the expertise Mervi brings to the team.

"In recent years, companies’ needs and demands for sustainability measures, reporting, and communication have grown significantly. Many businesses find themselves lacking the internal capacity or expertise. They want to focus their efforts on core operations and bring in external sustainability support either to complement or fully handle the work. To meet this need, we created our Sustainability Pilot service, which provides tailored support to companies. The demand has been strong, and expertise like Mervi’s is crucial for taking care of our clients," Senja says.

Mervi lives in Helsinki with her teenage children, and spends her free time enjoying sports.

"Our whole family is into exercise – the kids train competitively, and I do it mostly for fun. I run, walk, go to the gym, do yoga at home, and in winter I love to ski," Mervi concludes.