"We are protesting and advising and warning Fortum that it should not invest in this nuclear reactor," Kaisa Kosonen, campaigner with Greenpeace Finland, told AFP.

"The people in the Nordic region don't want more nuclear power, they want alternative and renewable energy sources," she said.

Fortum owns 26.6 percent of TVO, a non-profit entity that last year won parliamentary approval to build a fifth nuclear reactor in Finland, supplementing four existing power stations which were built in the 1970s.

The highly controversial plans forced the departure of the Green Party from the previous left-right coalition government in Finland.

On Monday, Fortum's employees were met by anti-nuclear slogans, leaflets and banners when they came to work at the group's headquarters outside Helsinki as well as its other main offices in Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm.

Activists from Greenpeace met with representatives of Fortum over the issue last Friday, when the company was warned that protests would be stepped up if the plans for the new reactor were carried out, Kosonen said.

Fortum, controlled by the Finnish state which has a 61-percent stake, is the Nordic region's second largest producer of electricity, supplying some 13 percent of total deliveries.

TERRA.WIRE