Mika Manninen's career story

Mika Manninen has lead Welado's green transition business since November 2024. He is responsible for building a team of around ten environmental and nature experts to meet our clients' environmental assessment and permitting needs for various projects having to do with renewable energy, such as wind, solar, and biogas throughout their life cycle. 

What is your core competence?

I have more than 20 years of extensive experience in the environmental sector, including in expertise and management in projects requiring multidisciplinary skills. I have been involved in more than 50 EIA procedures and more than 20 environmental permitting processes. I have also been involved in environmental risk analyses.

According to feedback from colleagues and clients, I have expertise in summarising and refining hundreds of pages of reports and evaluations by different experts into concise and understandable reports. As a project manager my job is to summarise and clarify the overall picture so that authorities, residents, and other stakeholders understand the key issues of environmental impact.

As a consultant our work of expertise requires the ability to be objective, which is essential in getting the most realistic picture of a project´s environmental impact. The ELY Centre, as the contact authority, ensures the accuracy of the environmental impact assessment in its reasoned conclusion.

How do you see the market for environmental expertise in renewable energy projects?

The green transition is a major step for the Finnish economy. According to the data window maintained by the EK, the value of currently known planned investments is around 270 billion euros. If even 20% of these projects were to be completed, they would employ 12 000 people and increase Finland's GDP by around 3 billion euros a year.

Investing in renewable energy will also increase our self-sufficiency and I see a huge potential market for wind, and solar power, as well as biogas. Of course, there is still the crucial egg-or-chicken question to be resolved in this sector. Financing renewable energy projects is challenging without certainty that the electricity produced can be sold on and at what price.

The issue of electricity storage is also relevant. Battery technology is developing rapidly, and I believe that in the future, electricity storage will help smooth out electricity consumption peaks. On the other hand, green hydrogen projects, pumped-storage hydroelectricity, and electric boiler projects are also very interesting.

How did your expertise come about?

I studied in Finland's first degree programme in sustainable development and graduated as an environmental planner in 2001. After my studies, I worked for a little over a year on a municipal sustainable development programme in south-western Häme, where I was inspired to improve my know-how. I ended up studying environmental engineering in Germany, as the only Finnish student in that year at Hamburg University of Technology.

After graduating in 2005, I returned to Turku, Finland, where I worked in various environmental jobs in the city, for example as an environmental inspector and planner. I also dropped by to work for the municipality of Mynämäki, from where I moved on to work as a consultant for Watreci, a small design and consultancy firm specialising in biogas plants. I worked there as a project manager in EIA procedures and in the preparing of environmental permit applications, especially for projects related to primary production, such as chicken coops and piggeries.

After three years, I moved to Pöyry Finland as a senior environmental consultant and from there in 2011 to start the EIA team at Sweco Finland (then AIRIX Environment). When I started, I was the first member of the team. Especially in the last few years, the green transition accelerated our growth, and in 2024 the environmental consulting department had more than 40 experts working on environmental issues related to renewable energy and other projects.

What interests you in environmental work?

My work with nature and human well-being is inherently responsible work and therefore very meaningful to me. I feel that I can contribute to a better tomorrow through my work. In my personal life, I make everyday choices to make our planet a better place, but in my work, I can have a much greater influence. We are talking about big projects to reduce the use of fossil fuels and create green energy in Finland. By mitigating climate change, nature will also benefit. Of course, there is much more to be done to combat the loss of nature, such as various restoration and compensation measures.

What do you focus on in your management work?

As a manager, I have been praised for my people-oriented leadership, my passing of responsibility, and the support I offer. I have stressed the importance of psychological safety, which means that I have tried to create a community where people can talk about difficult issues. Everyone can make mistakes, but we need to be able to talk openly about them so that we can learn from them together.

In addition to openness, I have invested in giving feedback. No one has ever complained about getting too much feedback. Weekly meetings with team members provide an opportunity both to discuss feedback and to go over the week's agenda and mood. These discussions are appreciated by our department members and help me keep my finger on the pulse of the department.

What made you decide to work for Welado?

I was looking for new challenges, and Welado was a great opportunity to use the skills I had built up over the years. From the moment I met Welado, I recognised its values as my own. Among the values, I particularly paid mind to reliability, because reliability is one of the most important factors in consultancy: clients can trust their consultant, the team can trust their manager, and colleagues can trust each other.

Together with Noora Haverinen and Janne Takkinen, we share a common vision of modern working life, the need for a softer culture in the construction industry, and the business opportunities of renewable energy. I appreciate the Weladian way of doing things in a fair and transparent way, and I have an empathetic and people-oriented view of Weladians.

Why will Welado succeed in the EIA market?

Welado's strength lies in its comprehensive expertise in project management and site supervision during construction, which we can also apply to energy projects. We bring added value to our clients by providing a one-stop shop for the entire project lifecycle, from planning to construction and from infrastructure design to operation.

I believe that customers appreciate the fact that things are done without complications, on time, and within the budget. In addition to being experts, we are also nice people.  We are a pleasure to work with.

What has been your most memorable project?

This year I have been involved in a big and interesting EIA process for an offshore wind project at the fronts of Ii, Simo, Kemi, and Oulu. Projects like this are my favourite for involving top experts in their field as clients and consultants and giving the opportunity to develop one´s own skills.

The most rewarding thing about a consulting career is that no two projects are the same, and there are always new learning opportunities. In addition to the offshore wind project in question, at the request of the client, I am continuing as a sub-consultant in a solar power project at Welado.

One of the most challenging situations occurred early in my career, when I was the EIA project manager for the largest piggery project in Finland at the time. The first public meeting was attended by over a hundred neighbours who were not enthusiastic about the project, and a lawyer hired by a next-door neighbour. The atmosphere was not helped by the fact that the announcement of the event had been published in the newspaper, by chance, on April Fool's Day.

Talking got us through this too. The most important thing in these situations, after all, is to stay calm and factual.

People's views are important and often have an influence on planning decisions. I always encourage people to participate in EIA procedures and to tell us about the issues that are important to them. Otherwise, they are often not known and considered by the consultant and project manager.

What kind of experts are you looking for in your team?

We aim to recruit a team of around ten environmental and nature experts between 2024 and 2025. The nature expert could be a biologist or a forester. We are looking for some experienced nature experts with bird knowledge and/or strong other nature-related knowledge (vegetation, directive species). Experience in EIA procedures and impact assessment is essential. A junior person at the beginning of their career who wants to learn from more experienced people would be well suited.

We also need a water expert, a landscape architect, climate expertise, groundwater expertise, soil and rock expertise, a planning architect, or a planning scientist with qualifications as a draftsman and spatial information skills. There is also a need for a noise and shadow modeller and impact assessor in the team.

Interested? If you need Mika's expertise for your project or more information about job vacancies, please contact him. You can also check out Welado's vacancies or our diverse partnership models.

Mika Manninen

mika.manninen@welado.fi

+358 45 634 0224