We are deeply honoured to announce that the Responsible Business Forum Estonia (VEF) awarded Sorainen its gold quality label. The label is a testament to our activities in developing socially responsible entrepreneurship in Estonia. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the natural and voluntary integration of the economic, environmental and social dimension of a company with the company’s day-to-day operations, management and business strategy.
The VEF index questionnaire provides an overview of whether and to what extent a company takes into account in its activities the basic principles of CSR, ISO26000 key CSR topics, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) global standards, and recommendations for communicating responsibility issues and the Estonian legal space in CSR issues.
Dedicated team
The VEF assessment highlights our organizational culture and dedicated team: ”A company with an excellent organizational culture that can set an example for others. A highly dedicated management and team who know what they are doing and why they are doing it, having certainly earned both the respect of employees and the trust of customers.”
Our partner Karin Madisson, who leads this field at Sorainen, is delighted that our efforts in such an important area have been noticed. She explains: “We became a member of VEF last year in order to make our activities more environmentally friendly and to be an even more socially responsible entrepreneur. Our goal is to contribute to the general increase in prosperity and well-being in the Baltic States and Belarus. One element of this is certainly acting responsibly in every aspect of what we do. In 2019, we created a special CSR working group within the company, which includes both lawyers and support services specialists, to analyse our activities overall from the perspective of sustainability and on the basis of our organisational values. We will definitely continue our journey this year as well.’
Contribution to society
We aim to make the world a better place. That’s why we invest in projects we have faith in. Sorainen’s Estonian office supports the organization ‘Youth for Understanding’, which offers international educational programmes, the charity initiative ‘Annetame Aega’, the environmental project ‘Let’s Do It’, the Children’s Fund of the University Hospital of Tartu and the NGO ‘Naerata Ometi’’, which helps families and children with special needs. In addition, we have been cooperating for many years with the Estonian Art Museum and the Peeter Church Social Centre, which helps children and families at risk. For Christmas, we also donated gifts to children in Estonian orphanages and their carer/educators. Last year we also supported the Children’s Fund of the University of Tartu Hospital with both free legal advice and financial donations. All Sorainen employees contributed to fundraising in the form of joint charity aerobics during the company’s summer days.
We also want the best possible environment for start-ups in our region. And since this is something that really matters to us, we are ready to contribute ourselves. We offer mentoring to start-ups (for example, free legal advice every month in Tartu), we cooperate with accelerators, angel investors and venture capital associations, and help start-ups and investors find each other. Our lawyers regularly participate in sharing their knowledge as lecturers at universities, in working groups at ministries and government offices as well as in drafting laws.
We also support important initiatives in the environmental field, such as World Cleanup Day with both free legal aid and participation in the event. The theme in Sorainen for 2019 was social and environmental responsibility. Within the framework of the theme year, we organized diverse activities ‒ the ‘Let’s do It!’ cleanup, an exchange of clothes between employees, new bins for more precise sorting of garbage ‒ and chose gifts for employees with a view to being as environmentally friendly as possible.
Valuing sustainability
The Gold Label is an example and benchmark of responsible entrepreneurship that has systematically integrated the principles of responsible entrepreneurship into its core business throughout the supply chain and demonstrates initiative, systematicity and consistency to ensure responsible behaviour in one’s organization, the supply chain and society at large. The quality label is awarded to companies that have participated in the Estonian Responsible Entrepreneurship Index ‒ companies that consider sustainable development important and consistently make multifaceted efforts to increase the positive impact on the surrounding living environment.
