Environment

Alongside its Social Value policy and its Environmental policy, via the Green Group, we undertake numerous firm-wide initiatives ensuring we operate to promote and adopt sustainable practices across the whole business. Recent examples include:

• Our recent firm wide conference organised to ensure that the majority of staff arrived on shared buses to avoid carbon miles.
• Our recent rebranding where everything was done to minimise any waste including reducing stocks of old branded products, sending any old, branded items such as t-shirts to charities.

Our ongoing initiatives include:

• Encouraging waste reduction and recycling across all our offices. We aim to operate a paperless workplace.
• Auditing our carbon emissions. A recent example is our Carbon Footprint Report prepared by external sustainability consultancy Green Element after detailed research and staff surveys. This audit will be used as a baseline to set emissions reduction targets.
• Transitioning to renewable electricity supplies and using resources more efficiently.
• Offsetting CO2 emissions for courier shipments.
• We actively promote travel by public transport, offer a cycle to work scheme and subsidised season tickets, and have introduced a scheme to assist staff to purchase EV or hybrid cars.
• Progressively influencing our suppliers to adopt sustainable environmental practices. We have recently created our first Supplier Charter which includes sustainability linked objectives and which every supplier must sign up to. 
• Supporting local supply chain when buying goods and services.
  Investment in IT equipment to reduce the need to travel to meetings and allow more agile and flexible working.
• Specialist renewable energy and environmental lawyers who advise clients and also contribute ideas on best practice to our internal ESG Committee and Green Group comprising staff who help shape initiatives and polices within Freeths.
• Sustainable sourcing is used where possible for all branded marketing items and equipment.
• Reducing marketing give away's and using recycled products where possible.
• We are a signatory to the Greener Litigation and members of the Legal Sustainability Alliance. This allows us to learn and share best practise with other businesses and collaborate to bring about environmental change. The Greener Litigation Pledge is an initiative to reduce the environmental impact of dispute resolution by aspiring to reach the position where the most environmentally sustainable options in litigation become the default.
• For the fourth year in a row, we are sponsors of Catalyse Change which supports young women aged 18-24 years with a passion for sustainability and ambitions to pursue careers in that field. Having last year sponsored one woman through the programme, this year we will do so again.