Environmental Policy

As a smart, bold team who always act together, we’re committed to being environmentally responsible. This means adopting practices and policies which reduce harmful impacts our business might have on our environment, both locally and globally.

We’re proud to hold the ISO 14001 Environmental Management Accreditation, which we first achieved in 2015. This recognises that we follow the best environmental practices and minimise our impact.

We now want to build on this platform as part of our wider commitment to operate our business ethically and sustainably. Our ESG policy lays out how we impact the environment and society in a positive way.

We commit to:

• Annually measure our impact on the environment and set targets for ongoing improvement
• Comply with all relevant environmental legislation
• Raise awareness of environmental issues to staff and incorporate their feedback into improving the Firm’s performance
• Encourage our suppliers to follow similar principles

Good practice in action

Green group
Our Green Group meets every quarter to review, monitor and recommend good environmental practices. A director from our Clean Energy, Waste and Sustainability team chairs the meetings, joined by representatives from Human Resources, Administration and Facilities, and other volunteers. We’re now creating local Green Groups to address different challenges at different offices.

Environmental management system
We developed an Environmental Management System (EMS) to help reduce our impact. We carry out regular reviews and audits to continually reduce the energy and materials we use and cut waste and pollution.

Specifically, we do regular reviews to:

• Keep all our offices on renewable energy tariffs
• Maintain the steps we’ve already taken to reduce waste, and particularly paper waste
• Make sure all our supplies are sourced sustainably. We introduced a Supplier Code of Conduct, which requires suppliers to procure sustainably, too
• Encourage staff to use public transport whenever they can for commuting and business travel
• Champion green issues among staff. We use our Green Group and intranet to get the message out.

Profile
Freeths LLP is one of the UK’s leading full-service law firms, with turnover exceeding £110m. Our people – namely 1,200+ freethinking colleagues – work across our 13 UK offices. Nottingham is our head office, with most administration and support services provided from there.

Facilities contacts
Carole Wigley
HR Director
Phone: 0345 274 6815
Email: carole.wigley@freeths.co.uk

Daniel Bolstridge
National Head of Facilities
Phone: 0345 077 9584
Email: daniel.bolstridge@freeths.co.uk

Good governance
This policy is reviewed by our Chief Operating Officer, who is also responsible for implementing it. Our ESG Committee also reviews and approves the policy for extra transparency.

Mark Blakemore
05/09/2024