Kamu Sauna Operations Are Now 100% Carbon Offset

Over the past few years, we have spent a great deal of time thinking about what it actually means to build a sauna business responsibly. From the onset, we have considered Kamu Sauna a social enterprise, and we continue to develop frameworks and measurements that help us evaluate not only the experiences we create, but how we can continually do better across social, cultural, ecological, and community impact.

Recently, Kamu Sauna completed carbon offsetting for our first three years of operations in partnership with Great Bear Carbon, the first Indigenous-owned carbon offset project in Canada, fully owned and governed by Coastal First Nations.

This included calculating emissions connected to our operations, including (but not limited to):

• transportation of mobile saunas
• all shipping, including shipments to customers
• business-related transportation
• regional and international travel, including air travel
• logistics and operational movement
• construction-related activities and materials (including power in the shop and daily commuting)
• business operations associated with events, consulting, and research
• other impacts associated with building and operating a mobile and community-based sauna initiative

We want to be transparent about something important: we do not see carbon offsetting as a perfect solution or a replacement for systemic change. There are valid critiques of offsets, and we believe those conversations matter.
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At the same time, we also believe accountability matters.

Why We Chose to Take This Step

We also recognize that sustainability work is rarely straightforward for small businesses. It can feel complex, imperfect, resource-intensive, and difficult to navigate transparently while still managing the realities of day-to-day operations.

But for sauna businesses like ours, we believe these conversations matter even more. Sauna culture is deeply connected to forests, water, heat, materials, energy, travel, and our relationship to place itself. If we are building spaces intended to support wellbeing, regulation, and connection to nature, then we also believe we have a responsibility to think critically about the impacts tied to those experiences.

We feel that perfection is not where change begins and that responsibility begins with measurement, honesty, and a willingness to continually improve over time.

For us, this decision felt aligned with the deeper values that have shaped Kamu Sauna from the beginning.

Sauna teaches interdependence. It reminds us that wellbeing is not isolated from forests, waters, air quality, ecosystems, or the health of communities. In Finnish sauna culture, humans are not positioned outside of nature; we are participants within it.

As our work has expanded through travel, consulting, research, community sauna initiatives, and international collaborations, we felt it was important to also acknowledge the environmental impacts associated with that growth.

Climate Change Close to Home

Living and working in British Columbia, with our construction shop in Edmonton, AB, the impacts of climate change no longer feel distant. Communities across both provinces are experiencing increasingly severe wildfire seasons, smoke exposure, flooding, and ecosystem stress that directly affect livelihoods, tourism, and community wellbeing. 

For those of us working in nature-based industries and gathering spaces, these realities are impossible to ignore. There is something particularly sobering about operating sauna experiences during periods when forests and communities around us are under climate pressure. Juho worked as a wildland firefighter for over a decade, and through that experience we have seen firsthand how interconnected ecological health, community resilience, and human wellbeing truly are.

While carbon offsetting alone will not solve these challenges, we believe businesses have a responsibility to participate in climate action where they can, while continuing to learn and reduce impacts over time.

Kamu Sauna's mobile saunas in the East Kootenays BC were built using 100% solar energy. We now offset ALL carbon emissions across all of our operations including in-shop sauna builds, global shipping, and travel.

​Why Indigenous-Led Climate Projects Matter

One of the reasons we chose to work with Great Bear Carbon specifically was because they are the first Indigenous-owned carbon offset project in Canada and are fully owned and governed by Coastal First Nations. We have been following their work and development for nearly a decade and were incredibly happy to support their efforts in protecting the Great Bear Rainforest while advancing Indigenous stewardship, conservation, and community wellbeing.
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According to Great Bear Carbon, the majority of proceeds from carbon offset purchases flow directly back to Coastal Nations stewardship initiatives, helping support land management, biodiversity protection, Guardian programs, sustainable economic development, and long-term ecological resilience within Indigenous territories.

This work is about supporting Indigenous governance, relationship to land, cultural continuity, and long-term stewardship models grounded in responsibility to future generations. Those values resonate strongly with how we understand sauna culture as well.
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Indigenous communities have long held sophisticated systems of ecological governance, relational stewardship, and land-based care. Increasingly, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas are being recognized not only as critical for biodiversity protection, but also as essential climate solutions.​

​Sauna, Stewardship + Ongoing Accountability

At Kamu Sauna, we often speak about sauna as social infrastructure: spaces that support collective wellbeing. But we also believe regenerative practice requires us to think beyond the walls of the sauna itself.

What does it mean to create warmth and care while remaining accountable to the places that make those experiences possible?

We do not claim to have this fully figured out, but we do aspire to keep learning, continuously improving, + reporting back. We are still navigating the tensions and contradictions that come with operating within modern economic systems while trying to hold deeper values around stewardship and community care.

And this felt like an important step, especially as a small business working to continually grow positive social outcomes for the communities we work within now and into the future.

This is part of an ongoing commitment to align our actions more closely with the kind of future we hope to contribute to and we are grateful to everyone who has supported Kamu Sauna over these past few years and allowed this work to grow.

We hope to continue learning alongside others who are asking similar questions about what responsible, community-rooted business can look like moving forward.
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If you are curious about this process or would like to connect and learn more, feel free to reach out.