Sustainability Unwrapped

Technology in legal design utilizes all kinds of technology to solve legal problems and facilitate work in the legal domain. Creating access and easily understandable legislation through tech can minimize many issues that currently stand. But how can we translate the complex legal language to everyday language? Why is there a need for technology in legal design? And what problems or resistance exists?  In this Sustainability Unwrapped episode, Katri Nousiainen leads the conversation on integrating technology with legal design, and why it should be seen as an asset instead of an overwhelming challenge. Connecting technology with the practise of law, not only benefits law practitioners but companies and individuals as well. Understanding the complex legal agreements, such as GDPR, can be an issue for many, and as Viveca states “[…] legal tech has the potential of rendering law accessible to people! That’s where the real gold is - empowering individuals, lowering costs, explaining the legal stuff etc.”.  Solutions, such as marketplaces for lawyers, minimizing blind-signing, research tools, document review software, can be created by exploring what tools are needed and used in the field, and by asking what the actual problems are. With endless possibilities across sectors and fields, how does it tie in with sustainability? According to Elisabeth “The impact is developing a general culture of law within companies beyond the legal division and giving each individuals the sufficient knowledge to be aware and respectful of the regulations that applies to them in full autonomy”, highlighting that leveraging technology simply makes sense and that it’s a necessary component in legal services of the 21st century.   In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, Katri Nousiainen, Doctorand at Hanken School of Economics at Department of Commercial Law, discusses the potential of technology in legal design together with Viveca Fallenius, the founder of Gentle Rev, Marie Potel-Saville the Founder and CEO of Amurabi, and Elisabeth Talbourdet, lawyer and project manager specializing in Legal Design.   Tune in to the episode to learn more about technology in legal design!    Listen previous episodes at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

This year constitutes the 10th anniversary of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The principles are “a set of guidelines for States and companies to prevent and address human rights abuses committed in business operations”. Since the release of the principles in 2011, businesses have increasingly started to accept and adopt their responsibility in human rights due diligence and addressing violations.   A report by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (2021), highlights that there are still too many human rights abuses in business-related contexts2. This might not come as a surprise, as out of the global corporations surveyed, almost half had at least one severe allegation of human rights violation in 2020.   Another recently released report “Status of Human Rights Performance of Finnish Companies” (SIHTI) found that in the Finnish context, companies are just now beginning the process of human rights due diligence. So how can companies, with complex, global supply chains, tackle human rights due diligence and violation issues on a practical level?  In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, Nikodemus Solitander, Director of Centre for Corporate Responsibility (CCR) at Hanken and co-author of the SIHTI report discusses with Lea Rankinen, Director of Sustainability and Public Affairs at Paulig about the human rights responsibilities of Paulig Group, a Finnish food and beverage company, and how they work with human rights issues on a practical level. This episode of Sustainability Unwrapped is part of a longer SIHTI podcast series on human rights in Finnish companies. See the previous SIHTI podcast episode here.  Listen to previous episodes at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

Sustainable water governance is expected to solve problems related to water scarcity, hydro-electricity and water contamination, to name a few. How do we understand sustainability in relation to water governance? Why do many water interventions labelled as “sustainable” produce highly contradictory results? Mira Käkönen talks about how dams are marketed as multi-purpose, sustainable solutions which can provide renewable energy and mitigate floods. The reality, however, unfolds differently as she explains: “the ways how these dams are built are through these concessionary agreements, where the corporate concessionaires have very high level of autonomy in how they operate the dam… and of course their rationale is to produce profit from selling hydro-electricity and so actually these dams are very uni-purpose dams […]” Climate justifications for dams are contradictory in a situation, where several other harmful impacts of the dams get neglected, Mira says.  Sustainable water governance relates to wider discourses on sustainability. According to Jessica Budds, sustainability can be misleading, as “in the sustainability narrative there is this idea that the environment, the economy and social needs can be balanced quite neatly”. This type of portrayal tends to hide the trade-offs occurring within these relationships.  In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, Linda Annala Tesfaye, post-doctoral researcher at Hanken School of Economics at the Centre for Corporate Responsibility discusses the tensions surrounding sustainable use of water with Jessica Budds, Associate Professor at the University of East Anglia and Mira Käkönen, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Tampere Institute for Advanced Study.  Listen to previous episodes at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

Home appliances, communications and information technology devices, home entertainment devices...you name it. Electronic or e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream globally. In 2019, a record of 53.6 million metric tons of globally generated e-waste was reported. Electronic devices contain an extensive list of precious metals as well as harmful chemicals; if no product recovery procedures are applied, we lose scarce resources and create a negative environmental footprint.   Our smartphones and small telecommunication devices contribute solely to about 4.7 million tons of e-waste annually. Nowadays, smartphone consumers tend to keep their devices for longer time, however, the lifecycle of a smartphone is still only about 2 years on average.  Can we prolong the lifecycle of smartphones and reduce the amount of e-waste? “When a device has some malfunction, for example, a broken screen, old or broken battery, or any other faulty component, such device can be refurbished. About 50% of all smartphones can be reused and it, of course, varies a lot from old to new iPhone models. We try to save components and parts from devices that have no value and cannot be refurbished. We use these parts in our refurbishing process. For the rest, we have our certified recycling partners,” affirms Felipe. In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, Anna Zhuravleva, Doctoral researcher at Hanken School of Economics at the HUMLOG Institute has a conversation with Felipe Cañete, Business Development Manager from Swappie , a Finnish iPhone refurbishing company, about the reuse of smartphones and consumer perspective on purchasing refurbished devices.  Text written by Anna Zhuravleva Listen previous episodes at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

Digital games industry has become the largest entertainment industry in the world and gaming careers are portrayed as a lucrative option for passionate game enthusiasts. However, there has been continued public turmoil regarding the discriminatory and non-inclusive aspects of the industry. We have seen multiple waves of public outcomings from employees of major game studios, who have disclosed systemic sexism, gender-based discrimination and racism. Building a career in the digital games industry is particularly challenging for women as well as other minority groups like racial and sexual minorities because of the prevailing gender stereotypes and the masculinist culture of the industry, and the gamer culture at large. In the light of all this, it is unsurprising that the efforts to recruit women into coding and the games industry have been mostly ineffective — women comprise one-fifth of the game industry workforce both in Finland and globally. In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, Marke Kivijärvi, Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher at Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics and an affiliated researcher at GODESS institute at Hanken, discusses with Jenni Ahlapuro, a community volunteer at Inklusiiv and a communications consultant working within the tech & games industry at Netprofile, and Marianne Määttä, President of Female Gaming Finland ry about the importance of raising awareness of the inclusion problems in games sector and ways of actively supporting diversity and inclusion. The guests share their experiences as players and members of gaming communities and talk about their volunteer work to support diversity and inclusion in the games industry spaces, and the wider tech sector.  Listen previous episodes at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

In the past years there has been a global boom to invest sustainably, both in the private and institutional sectors. Sustainable investing provides an opportunity to invest by considering environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors. According to Bloomberg-Green, solely in 2020 the investment in ESG oriented funds in Europe topped 1,12 trillion euros (approximately US$1,4 trillion). Huge right?  Based on recent reports and articles (such as MSCI or Millennials Are a Driving Factor in the Growth behind ESG Investments) younger generations especially women, but growingly also investors from all ages and genders are interested in sustainable investing, because of the growing concern of environmental and social and other related issues and secondly, because there is just more information available nowadays. Further, the swift in the markets has put a lot of pressure for all the companies to renew their strategies. Companies are judged rather on how they contribute to a more sustainable society than with short-term financial goals.  Get your answers in this inspiring Sustainability Unwrapped episode, where Hanna Silvola invites Magnus Alfredsson to explore and chart what we should consider when selecting sustainable funds and what will the future of sustainable investing look like.   Listen previous episodes at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

Access to justice is a fundamental rule of law and is protected under various conventions on human rights. In reality, there are lot of delays and issues with the overall judicial processes around the world. This is where lean thinking could come into play. Lean is about creating the most value for the customer while minimizing resources, time, energy, and effort. It enables the smooth flow of the processes, while striving for continuous improvement and is in this podcast episode suggested to be applicable to the justice system to improve the existing processes.  Tune in to this Sustainability Unwrapped episode, to get a good grasp of how lean thinking can improve the justice system, smoothen the judicial processes and the various roadblocks currently facing it. The episode is hosted by Isabell Storsjö, doctoral student in Supply Chain Management and Social Responsibility at Hanken, with guests Ana Lúcia Martins, Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing, Operation and Management at ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon and Matti Tolvanen, Professor in Criminal Law and Procedure at University of Eastern Finland.  Listen previous episodes at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

Ethical animal testing methods, business practices in the chemical industry and natural ingredients sourcing are just a few of the practices that exist within the cosmetics industry with unsustainable tendencies. Microplastics and chemicals from cosmetics products and their packaging have also been found to have negative impact on both life in water and on land. But the cosmetics industry and unsustainable practices does not have to go hand in hand, something both consumers and companies are realising more and more.  Conscious consumerism, rising consumer awareness and pressure from policy makers to move away from harmful practices has incentivised cosmetic companies to take ownership of their role in creating a sustainable future. Because of this, it comes as no surprise that the global natural and organic cosmetics market has grown immensely, from a 1$ billion market in mid 1990 to a whopping 9.1$ billion in 2011. In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, we deep dive into the natural cosmetics industry with Marisun Gajitos, Lecturer at the Centre for Languages and Business Communication at Hanken, Emilie Raittinen, marketing manager at cosmetics company Naviter and Edem Agbekey-Taylor, founder and CEO of Inkuto Organics. The discussion touches upon the natural cosmetics market, what to consider in the production of natural cosmetics (raw materials, packaging, and certification) and how sustainable development is considered in practice at Naviter and Inkuto Organics. Tune in for more insights on natural cosmetics and how beauty can be sustainable! Explore more at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/

To fulfill the obligations under the EU waste directive, Finland will have to develop a network of local textile collectors and sorting facilities, build, and test the textile processing factory, and find ways to utilise recycled textiles. In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, Anna Zhuravleva, Doctoral student at Hanken School of Economics at the HUMLOG Institute, gets together with Emppu Nurminen from Nextiili, an organisation from city of Tampere which is part of the textile collection pilot unfolding in Finland.   Anna and Emppu walk us through all that we should know about textile reuse and recycling in Finland. They discuss the difference between reuse and recycling as the two are often used interchangeably in day-to -day language. ‘’Let’s say, your jeans, when they are recycled, are broken down into cotton fiber which is collected and then used as material for something else. Reuse is when someone is using your old jeans still as jeans’’, emphasizes Emppu.   The discussion then delves into the transformation that lies ahead of us in the textile industry in Finland and all the closed-loop solutions we are seeing, and will see in the future. Emppu also talks about the social aspect of this transformation and foresees ‘’ this will lead to a more ecologically sustained society which will also create new recycling jobs in Finland’’. Tune in now to explore this significant upcoming development!  CORRECTION: at 12:29: Emppu Nurminen is not leading the project on textile sorting at Nextiili. Helena Käppi is leading the project at Nextiili  Explore more at podcast website:  https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

Nowadays sustainability is part of our everyday life. We are more aware of the environmental capacity to maintain natural resources, as we try to adjust our lifestyle according to it. Likewise, sustainability is also impacting the work of artists across the world, raising the question what does art have to do with sustainability? and how can art in its various forms contribute to a more sustainable lifestyle?  Join Marisun Gajitos, Lecturer at the Centre for Languages and Business Communication at Hanken with Outi Turpeinen, Art Coordinator at Aalto University, Veli-Markus Tapio, Senior Advisor in Finnish Cultural Foundation, and Paavo Halonen Finnish contemporary artist and designer located in Helsinki, to find out how art and sustainability are intertwined and what can be done for a more sustainable lifestyle.  Visit the podcast website: https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/ 

In humanitarian assistance, an increasingly popular response is cash and voucher assistance (CVA). CVA refers to “the provision of cash transfers or vouchers given to individuals, household or community recipients”1. Just from 2015 to 2020, the use of CVA as a humanitarian response more than doubled, making it an important element of the humanitarian response programs2.  CVA’s positive impact in social and economic sustainability is well established; it allows freedom in decision-making and dignity for recipients since they control how they spend the cash or vouchers, boosts local consumption and business, as well as promotes social cohesion1. However, there has not been as much focus on the environmental impact of CVA, as the programming of CVA programs often makes it difficult to assess and control their environmental impact.  In this episode of Sustainability Unwrapped, Amin Maghsoudi, researcher at the HUMLOG institute at Hanken, discusses with José Jodar and Valérie Léon, about CVA´s relationship to the environment and how environmental impact can be considered in the CVA programs without forgetting the social benefits and burdening the recipients of assistance.  José Jodar is a technical advisor at CaLP (the Cash Learning Partnership) with a background in development and international cooperation. Valérie Léon is a researcher at Groupe URD with a background as a field humanitarian worker for 10 years.  Visit the podcast website for more information: https://blogs.hanken.fi/sustainability-unwrapped/  References: Balmer, L., Aftab Alam, S. M. and Koirala, B. (2021). Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) Programming: A step-by-step guide. Plan International.  Brangeon, S. and Léon, V. (2020). THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF CASH AND VOUCHER ASSISTANCE. Groupe URD. 

Human rights impact of business activities is one of the hot topics of today. While the discussion has roots as far back as the times of Dutch East India Company (early 17th century), the landscape is still rocky and contentious, and different types of tensions embedded in the discussion are hard to escape.Human rights issues, particularly within the context of companies’ supply chains, have been broadly recognized. However, since supply chains are increasingly located in Global South, the responsibility of addressing them has been a hot potato few companies have been willing to ‘own’ fully.The approaches companies have adopted to various human rights challenges they face through their activities are varied, as there is no binding regulation that would steer the companies in these aspects. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) were launched in 2011, but still, nine years later, there is little concordance as to the level and means business enterprises implement these guidelines. This has spurred on the growing interest in this topic and given rise to new ideas of how to go about charting the terrain.Also, Finland has taken a closer look at the Finnish business’ human rights performance in an ongoing SIHTI-project, which has used the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) methodology to obtain a comprehensive and in-depth overview of how Finnish companies are fulfilling their human rights responsibility.The SIHTI-report will be published on 18 January 2021, and a corresponding publishing event will be streamed online on 26 January at 9-11 am. The event will be held in Finnish, and you can register here.This interesting podcast, which features discussion between the project research team, discusses both SIHTI, the CHRB-methodology, and human rights questions in relation to business activities in a broader sense. It is hosted by Nikodemus Solitander, Director of Centre for Corporate Responsibility (CCR) at Hanken with guests Jaana Vormisto, Managing Director at FIANT Consulting and Suvi Halttula, Founder and Senior Advisor at 3bility Consulting.