Corporate Citizenship at Hannes Snellman 2023

Corporate citizenship has been strongly rooted in our culture and operations ever since Hannes Snellman founded the firm in 1909. Each generation of our team has continued the efforts to keep the heritage of serving the community up to date and thriving, ensuring our ways of working develop and live in time. For us, corporate citizenship and sustainability means the practical realisation of the fundamental professional values of our firm, attorneys, and law firm professionals.

Annual Donations in 2023

One of our traditions is to make annual donations to charities that share our values. The chosen causes reflect the UN Sustainable Development Goals that we at Hannes Snellman have identified as top priorities: Reduce Inequalities; Climate Action; and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.

We continued to support our long-term cooperation partner UNICEF in Finland and in Sweden. Our cooperation with UNICEF involves various forms, such as offering pro bono legal advice, working with UNICEF’s testament donation programme enabling individuals to leave a legacy for children in need through their wills, and monetary donations to support humanitarian work and development programmes around the world.

In addition, we supported Caravan to Ukraine, which is a Finnish association with the purpose to raise money to provide Ukraine with vehicles filled with equipment, such as generators urgently needed to support the country and its efforts in the ongoing war. Caravan has already completed three rounds of deliveries to Ukraine in 2023. Caravan has no administrative costs as all persons involved in the association’s work carry it out on a pro bono basis. Caravan is planning to carry out another vehicle delivery in December (the “Christmas Caravan”), and it will continue with the programme in 2024. 

Furthermore, we decided to support Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an international medical humanitarian organisation. Its work is guided by principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independence. The organisation provides lifesaving medical care where it is needed most. Its medical teams work with people affected by conflicts, natural disasters, and epidemics. MSF also provides access to primary healthcare in areas where there is none. The organisation treats people irrespective of their ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, or political views.

In the autumn, Hannes Snellman partnered up with Commu to help those in need at the #1000tekoa event, Finland’s largest volunteer event organised in Helsinki on Saturday 25 November. Commu, a United Nations' award-winning platform of helping, is the largest platform for helping others in Finland, matching people who need help with people who want to offer help. During their charity event, 1,000 bags of food and 500 warm lunches were given away to those in need. Hannes Snellman donated money to support the event, and our some of our staff volunteered at the event.

UN Global Compact

Since 2020, Hannes Snellman has been a member of the UN Global Compact Network, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative that supports companies in doing business responsibly by aligning their strategies and operations with the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact in the areas of human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption and by taking strategic actions to advance broader societal goals with an emphasis on collaboration and innovation. In 2024, we continue to integrate the Global Compact and its principles into our business strategy, culture, and daily operations.

Making an Impact as a Law Firm

Green transition, ESG, and sustainability themes have significantly increased their weight during the last few years. The ability to transform business and operations to meet the ESG and sustainability criteria set by regulators, investors, customers, employees, lenders, and other stakeholders, as well as compliance with the increasing amount of EU-wide regulation and reporting requirements have become business critical to many companies, starting from the largest and moving towards the rest. This can be seen not only in our own internal emphasis areas but also clearly in the volume and balance of our assignment work, with continuing increase in mandates relating to the green transition, different forms of renewable energy, environmental permitting, green financing, compliance, board role and liability, and other governance mandates. 

Sustainability Report 2023

Please read our latest Sustainability Report here.