Sustainability is a complex area and an ongoing focus for our firm. Our priority is to make sure that the way we operate has as little environmental impact as possible.
We are looking at how we deal with waste, energy and reducing our carbon footprint, with the objective to eliminate our use if we can, reduce where possible or substitute if necessary. This is a broad approach and covers everything from how we manage our offices to the travel we undertake the decisions we make about the suppliers and products we use.
We have developed a five step climate action plan that we're using as a framework to help us improve in this key area.
Some steps are long-term and will take time, others are quicker wins that we're implementing now. All are tangible, a priority for us and part of our business plan with board level support.
We are currently analysing our carbon footprint to understand what it is now and importantly what it was pre Covid. From our new financial year in April 2022, we will track our carbon footprint on an ongoing basis as part of our standard business reporting. This is important to us so we can understand how and where we need to improve.
We will ask ourselves the tough questions and challenge our approach and behaviours to reduce our footprint as much as possible. What we can't change, we will offset.
We are tracking and working to reduce our carbon footprint. We will use a combination of changing our working practices and off-setting our carbon footprint using carbon avoidance projects. We will be using our carbon footprint data to enable us to pinpoint specific areas that we need to target.
We know that our travel is a significant contributor to our carbon footprint. We will now look at the impact of our trips and introduce a 'Sustainability Sense Check' to question transport choice, business need and perceived value. We plan to be clever, use time and resources wisely and only travel when necessary.
We have decided to plant a tree for every new matter we open. The right tree in the right place, The Mewburn Ellis Forest is managed by responsible partners in a sustainable way is an important part of tackling the climate crisis. We are supporting the planting of native and biodiverse mix of tree species in planting sites around the world including the UK. These planting projects also help to support local communities and reduce poverty by employing local workers.
We believe that showcasing the good work of our clients and ensuring there is focus on the conversation around sustainability is an important part of the puzzle. We have recently launched our Green IP Report. and are talking extensively about this topic in our sustainability blogs and Green Tech spotlight page.
We also plan to create an internal Sustainability Group made up of people that want to get involved with this initiative within the firm who can help identify and drive forward sustainability initiatives at the firm.
As part of our community programme we donate a percentage of our funds each year to sustainable charities to support and reach areas that we cannot directly impact. We already give 1% of our profits to charity each year which amounts to over £200,000 and believe it's important that some of this money supports sustainability goals too.
