Sustainability Unwrapped

Humanitarian Unwrapped is a brand, new conversational podcast about crisis response and supply chains. Join us every month for a hard-hitting conversation, between academia and the humanitarian sector, about the cutting-edge research conducted by the HUMLOG Institute. “Humanitarian Unwrapped” is the little-sister podcast to “Sustainability Unwrapped” and shares the same conversational tone, where science meets practice, with a humanitarian focus.

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/