DLA PIPER
Sustainability Report
2021/2022
FROM AMBITION TO ACTION
Sustainability Report 21/22
Table of contents
0.0 INTRODUCTION
0.1 About us 0.2 About this report 0.3 A word from our senior leaders 0.4 Our firm at a glance
1.0 SUSTAINABILITY AT DLA PIPER
1.1 Approach to sustainability 1.2 Our materiality assessment 1.3 Our sustainability strategy and roadmap
2.0 OUR PEOPLE
2.1 Diversity and inclusion 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing 2.3 Nurturing talent
3 3.0 OUR CLIENTS
4 3.1 Client advice on ESG 6 8 4.0 OUR SOCIETY 11
4.1 Social impact 4.2 Social justice and capacity building 12
13 5.0 OUR ENVIRONMENT
16 19
5.1 Net Zero transition
5.2 Operational footprint
21 5.3 Circular economy 5.4 Green supply chain
22
32
40
49 6.0 SOUND GOVERNANCE
50 6.1 ESG risks and governance
6.2 Ethical protection and use of data
56 6.3 Labour and human rights
6.4 Professional integrity
57 64
6.5 Stakeholder dialogue
73 7.0 REPORTING ON SUSTAINABILITY
74 7.1 Scope, methodology and assurance
84
87
7.2 ESG metrics 7.3 Corporate governance
90
7.4 SASB Standards index
7.5 GRI Standards index
7.6 WEF Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics index
7.7 Memberships, commitments and awards
7.8 Further information
95
96 100 102 106 108
109
110 111 119 124 126 135 142 144
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
2
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.0 Introduction
0.0 Introduction
Welcome to our 2021/22 sustainability report.
Read on: 0.1 About us 0.2 About this report 0.3 A word from our senior leaders 0.4 Our firm at a glance
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
3
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.1 About us
0.1 About us
Who we are
DLA Piper is a global law firm working on every continent. We believe great businesses make a better world.
Wherever they are, and wherever they're going, we help our clients transition to, and thrive in, a more sustainable future.
And we're becoming more sustainable too. Because our stakeholders expect it, because we must be authentic and credible, and because it's the right thing to do.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
4
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.1 About us
Our values
From our interactions with our people, to our work with clients and our relationships with communities, we live by these values in everything we do:
Be supportive
We are compassionate and inclusive, valuing diversity and acting thoughtfully.
Be bold
We are fearless and inquisitive, challenging ourselves to think big and find creative new solutions.
Living our values
Over the past several years we've been working to embed our values into all our business processes, so that they're genuinely reflected in everything we do as a firm.
We developed a 4-point scale to measure how well our values are embedded into our business processes: basic, developing, good practice, and best in class.
In July 2020 we scored all our business processes for the first time against this scale to generate our baseline. On average, we scored in the `developing' stage for most of our processes. We now regularly repeat this assessment in order to track improvements and gaps, and in July 2021 our average has improved to `good practice'. We'll continue to embed our values into everything we do, and are aiming towards `best in class' for all of our business processes.
Basic
Good practice
Be collaborative
We are proactive, passionate team players, investing in our relationships.
Be exceptional
We are strategic and driven, exceeding standards and expectations.
Developing
Best in class
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
5
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.2 About this report
0.2 About this report
Welcome to DLA Piper's sustainability report for 2021/22.
This report aims to give our stakeholders an account of how we're addressing the sustainability topics that are most important to our firm, and to them. It's for anyone interested in knowing more about our efforts to be a sustainable and responsible business in particular, our people (and those who may be thinking about working with us), our clients, our business partners, NGOs we work with, and our suppliers. It covers the financial year May 2021 April 2022.
This is our second report in this format. This year's report is, for the first time, based on the results of our double-materiality assessment, completed in early 2022. Conducting a double-materiality assessment means that we've examined the importance of ESG issues both from the lens of their impact on the financial health of the business, as well as the outward impact on society and external stakeholders. The core of the report is structured around our 15 material issues and explains our view on and plans for managing each of these topics.
We're working to build on the progress we made last year on disclosure and transparency. We remain committed to sharing the most relevant information, and information that is balanced between achievements and challenges, and overall moving closer to reporting best practice. We recognise there are still gaps, and we're actively working to resolve them in future reports.
This report is a snapshot of our activities over a particular period of time. We encourage you to visit our website and social media accounts for up-to-date information about our sustainability progress and plans.
Our International Board and Executive have reviewed and approved this report.
We welcome feedback. Please email us at [email protected]
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
6
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.2 About this report
Report scope
DLA Piper has operations across the globe. This report concentrates on the activities of our offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East (which we refer to as "DLA Piper International"), excluding activities of our offices in the Americas, Nordics, Portugal, New Zealand, and partner firms in Africa. Where we describe governance structures, management systems, policies, activities and performance data in this report, they relate to DLA Piper International, unless otherwise specified. The full list of our practicing entities is on our website.
Assurance and basis of preparation
This report has been prepared with reference to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards, and also responds to applicable Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and World Economic Forum (WEF) stakeholder capitalism metrics. Carbon Intelligence has provided limited assurance of our greenhouse gas emissions figures against ISO 14064-3 standard, and Corporate Citizenship has provided limited assurance of the non-environmental data sets against the GRI Principles of Accuracy, Clarity, Comparability, Timeliness and Verifiability, using the ISAE 3000 standard.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
7
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.3 A word from our senior leaders
0.3 A word from our senior leaders
Statement from our CEO
In last year's Sustainability Report, we described what the huge challenge of sustainable transformation means for our firm. This year we bring this to life by openly explaining both our progress and challenges as we integrate sustainability throughout DLA Piper.
The completion of our first global materiality assessment, which underpins this report, has helped us refine our priorities and test our ambitions. The Net Zero transition is our top-rated issue unsurprising given the speed and scale of the climate emergency. It's also integral to two of our other top issues: ESG risks and governance, and the impact of our environmental advice.
We're following climate science to rapidly decarbonise our operations. And this year we committed to SBTi to become a Net Zero firm by 2040. This goes beyond our near-term Science-based Target to halve our emissions by 2030.
We're also better quantifying and assessing the impact of our advice on our clients' carbon transitions. We must also deploy our skills and influence to go further where we can, which is why in 2022 we signed a corporate purchase power agreement. This is a first for any law firm. It will generate additional renewable energy from a new-build solar farm in England, supplying our UK and 15 European offices. We also plan to use excess green credits to help some of our suppliers decarbonise.
This report explains our performance against the D&I goals we set last year. There's much to do, but we're focused on embedding inclusive behaviours and using enhanced diversity data to make meaningful progress.
All this informs various programmes, such as Elevate, which supports underrepresented groups through the partner process. And Head Start, which removes barriers into the legal profession, and which we've expanded beyond the UK.
It also improves our health and wellbeing activity, which provides the right support at the right time. Adapting this in the face of the Ukraine war, and our decision to cease operating in Russia, has been especially important.
Through our pro bono work on social justice and capacity building, we continue to protect the rights of vulnerable people around the world. In partnership with Macquarie Law School in Australia, we launched Wallumatta Legal, which provides affordable low-fee legal services.
We also continue to respond to humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine, aided by our new strategic partnership with UNHCR.
Lack of diversity remains a challenge for the legal sector, especially at senior levels. This was confirmed by our materiality assessment, which rated three people topics among our top six issues: diversity and inclusivity, health and wellbeing, and nurturing talent.
Simon Levine Global Co-CEO
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.3 A word from our senior leaders
Statement from our Chairman
My first months as Senior Partner coincided with more evidence of the climate emergency, from floods in Bangladesh and Pakistan to an unprecedented heatwave across Europe. When talking to our people and business partners around the world, I've been struck by both the scale of the climate and biodiversity challenges facing our communities, and the role business and law can play in delivering environmental and social transition.
Part of my role is ensuring we evolve our governance structures to make sustainability core to how we operate. A leadership mindset that focuses only on the management of ESG risk won't deliver the transformation in business models and operations required to be sustainable. ESG starts with purpose and is evidenced through impact. That's why this report is focused on performance, informed by data and an open discussion about progress.
Sustainability is at the forefront of our business strategy. We're decarbonising our operations to be a Net Zero firm by 2040, in part by renewed management of carbon hotspots in our supply chain, our corporate purchase power agreement, and disciplined implementation of Thoughtful Travel.
But the most important measure of our climate footprint is the impact of our advice and collaboration with clients. How we credibly assess and measure this "real scope 3" is new and complex for our sector, and a key part of effective ESG governance.
Mindful of the work still to do, our social impact as set out in this report is just as important. Working thoughtfully with community partners and tracking our performance is a business imperative, a driver of our business outcomes, and a clear measure of how we're helping society.
This report has extensive data and analysis on our D&I performance. The effectiveness of our D&I initiatives can be seen through data on partner promotions by gender or underrepresented groups. It's also assessed through the effectiveness of our programmes to attract and retain diverse talent. And, crucially, it's underpinned by an inclusive culture. Our ongoing One Voice Made of Many campaign is a powerful example of how we're using storytelling to amplify and share the authentic voices of our diverse workforce.
We're also working with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership on a new global project: the Future of Boards. This will gather inputs from business leaders, advisors and regulators from around the world and give practical recommendations on the structure, operations and role of boards. The results from this unique research will be shared widely so that we can all learn from the findings; certainly, we will apply them to DLA Piper as part of our continuing transformation.
Jon Hayes Senior Partner
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.3 A word from our senior leaders
Statement from our Managing Director Sustainability and Resilience
This report has a clear message: every business needs to contribute to a 1.5-degree world. Not work against it.
The legal sector is in the spotlight as never before. It's being asked to explain and quantify the impact of its work with clients as they transition environmentally and socially.
For years, we've worked across the areas categorised as ESG. Just as our clients must be clear about the impact of their actions, so must we. The emergence of advised emissions and social impact metrics, specific to law firms, with expectations around transparency and rigour, are welcome and necessary. We're working with clients and stakeholders to get this right and integrate it into our own governance.
We're building a future-fit, sustainable law firm. Our role is to integrate material ESG risks and opportunities into our and our clients' business strategies. This means equipping our lawyers for this new reality.
We see over and over that our clients collaborate to tackle huge social and environmental issues. The challenge of creating and ensuring supply chains are both sustainable and just can never be overcome by a single company.
We also often see, regardless of jurisdiction, a policy gap in the face of urgent sustainability issues. Sometimes because of local political will. Sometimes because of the inability of policymakers to respond at speed or with ambition.
We try to play our part in our own sector. As a founding member of NZLA and PRIME, supporters of GAIL, and a new member of the WBA, we know change comes when competitors collaborate.
I'm struck by the speed and scale of the transition to a sustainable future. Scrutiny of the rigour and consistency of ESG standards across regulators, raters and investors has intensified. This is because of the need to disclose and explain performance and impact. Law firms are well-placed to support clients on this. Our role is also to apply our insight in a wider context that goes beyond managing risk, liability and disclosure: helping our clients drive change. This can be unfamiliar territory for lawyers. But they must play their part in testing and changing economic frameworks as entire sectors and markets transition.
Jean-Pierre Douglas-Henry Managing Director Sustainability and Resilience
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
10
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 0.4 Our firm at a glance
0.4 Our firm at a glance
Our people
6,719 lawyers and business services professionals.
Our clients
13,000 clients in 2021/22.
Our environment
47% carbon emissions reduction since 2019/20.
35% UK, 45% Europe, 16% APAC, 4% Middle East and Africa.
10 sectors and 7 practice areas.
74% employee engagement score.
49 offices in 30 countries.
38% Board positions held by women. 23% of our partners are women.
Our society
197,512 pro bono hours in 2021.
19% of senior management roles are held by women.
2,045 of our lawyers have given their time to pro bono projects in 2021.
10 hours per person spent by our people on upskilling in FY21/22.
650+ DLA Piper people serving as mentors to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
24% of our procurement spend is covered by a Science-based Target commitment.
13 MW per hour renewable energy will be generated via our corporate power purchase agreement for a new-build solar farm in the UK.
*These statistics don't include our offices in the Americas or our Brand Integrated Firms ** Senior Management includes Country Managing Partners, Practice Heads, Sector Heads, and the Executive
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
11
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
1.0 S ustainability at DLA Piper
Read on: 1.1 Approach to sustainability 1.2 Our materiality assessment 1.3 Our sustainability strategy and roadmap
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
12
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.1 Approach to sustainability
1.1 Approach to sustainability
The role of law firms in sustainability
International law firms have an important contribution to make in building a better world for all of us. DLA Piper is committed to making businesses better by helping clients and communities transition to and thrive in a more sustainable future.
Time to act
For businesses, the time to take action on sustainability is now. There's a growing expectation among stakeholders that businesses make a meaningful contribution to addressing the sustainability challenges that face our world.
These challenges are complex and multi-layered. Businesses must respond effectively to immediate challenges such as the impact of COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis, while at the same time must not lose sight of longer-term but no less urgent issues such as the climate emergency. Radical, far-reaching action on climate is vital, but it must be taken against a backdrop of social transformation to ensure the climate transition doesn't cause further inequality and injustice in society.
These global pressures are transforming the world businesses operate in. Businesses are now facing systemic changes: not just in the regulatory environment, but in how they are valued by investors and markets. Increasingly, business success is no longer defined by the bottom line alone: profit and social purpose are seen as interdependent.
The scale of the challenge for the world and to businesses as we transition to Net Zero is undeniable. Arguably, no global business is yet genuinely operating within planetary boundaries. Therefore, an approach that amounts to simply managing ESG risk will fail to achieve the level of change that is needed. A transformation of business models and operations, and the markets and systems that value them is occurring.
As a law firm, we're at the centre of this systemic change and have an important role to play in helping companies achieve this transformation.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
13
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.1 Approach to sustainability
An evolving landscape
As government, investor and consumer focus on the social and environmental impacts of businesses has sharpened, regulation and standard-setting around environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have evolved rapidly. Many central banks, regulation authorities and stock exchanges are setting ESG-related listing requirements.
More stringent disclosure standards are being prepared or have been introduced. These include those set by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), and the US SEC's proposed rules to enhance and standardise climate-related disclosures for investors.
Putting sustainability at the heart of business
Today, lawyers are taking an increasingly active role in advising on corporate sustainability and responsibility issues. Legal teams are no longer just reacting to issues as they arise but are becoming involved proactively in integrating material ESG risks and opportunities in companies' policies and strategies.
Lawyers are helping clients deliver their sustainability goals in a number of key ways:
Through this support, lawyers are managing companies' ESG risks and helping them develop strategies that better align with sustainability. In this way, they are better enabling their clients to transform their business models to operate in a low carbon, socially just future.
Businesses face two related challenges. On the one hand, they must demonstrate a commitment to creating long-term, sustainable value, aligning their strategies with social purpose. On the other, they must navigate a complex and rapidly evolving landscape of ESG regulations and standards around transparency and disclosure. Law firms are uniquely positioned to help companies address both of these challenges.
Corporate purpose
Decarbonisation and biodiversity
Treating people fairly
Data and technology
Supply chain integrity
Sustainable investments and insurance
ESG disputes
Governance and reporting
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.1 Approach to sustainability
Maximising sustainable value
For law firms, providing a strong ESG offering, as well as grounding all legal advice in the realities of environmental limitations and social imperatives, is no longer a choice but a business necessity. Companies increasingly expect lawyers to support them in addressing sustainability priorities. And they'll choose law firms based on their track record of doing this.
Meanwhile, law firms have their own choices to make. How best can we work with a client to maximise positive social and environmental impact? Should law firms choose not to work with certain clients or projects based on ESG considerations and if so, how do they make these decisions? You can read more about our developing approach to these issues in this report.
A credible sustainability partner
To act as a sustainability partner to our clients, we know we first need to lead by example. Our materiality assessment has given us a clear mandate to advance on our own ESG priorities with more urgency than ever before, and this year we are focusing on making the necessary operational changes to transform our business.
This includes making similar business transformations that our clients are facing, such as more meaningfully integrating sustainability into our business governance and decision-making, measuring our impact as a business, and ensuring we have sound lines of accountability to support this transformation. This report outlines what we've achieved so far, and where we will go next.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
15
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.2 Our materiality assessment: focusing on what matters
1.2 Our materiality assessment: focusing on what matters
To maximise our potential to drive positive change, we need to focus our efforts on our material issues our ESG impacts that matter most to our business and to our stakeholders. In early 2022, we took a major step forward on this journey by completing our first materiality assessment.
This was our first assessment of this kind and we wanted to take a robust, comprehensive approach. Our assessment used the double-materiality principle (looking at both the financial and wider social and environmental impacts of our business) and covered the firm's entire global operations, taking into account nuances across our locations.
The assessment involved engaging stakeholders across our business. In total, we carried out:
22 one-to-one interviews with external stakeholders.
24 one-to-one interviews with internal stakeholders.
10 focus groups with internal stakeholders.
"ESG is as much about our clients and what they do based on our advice, as it is about our own operations. Through our services we can really make an impact."
Internal stakeholder
1 internal survey receiving 1,203 responses across 6 regions.
Many of our people feel deeply committed to action on ESG issues and welcomed the opportunity to take part in focus group discussions.
The assessment was supported by our external sustainability advisor, ERM. This helped us ensure our methodology was rigorous and aligned with best-practice and allowed for anonymity and confidentiality during the stakeholder engagement process.
"A s a global firm, it's our responsibility to be sustainable because we can make a difference for example, by improving diversity and inclusion, our hiring policy, ensuring women are in top positions, and through our pro bono work."
Internal stakeholder
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.2 Our materiality assessment: focusing on what matters
Very important
Our material issues
Environmental
Social
Governance
Very important
Net Zero transition
Diversity, mobility, and inclusion
Stakeholder concern
Social justice and capacity building
Operational footprint
ESG risks and governance
Client advice on social impact
Professional integrity
Green supply chain
Circular economy
Stakeholder dialogue
Important
Labour and human rights
Important
Client advice on environment Nurturing talent
Ethical protection and use of data
Employee health and wellbeing
Community impact Business impact
Client advice on governance
Very important
Important
The findings
The assessment identified 15 material issues, prioritised by order of importance both in terms of impact on society and financial impact on our firm. Globally, our top six material issues are:
1. Net Zero transition 2. Diversity, mobility and inclusion 3. ESG risks and governance 4. Client advice on environment 5. Employee health and wellbeing 6. Nurturing talent As well as identifying these key global issues, the assessment revealed regional priorities and how they varied, which are valuable insights for our regional leaders and country managing partners.
The engagements also uncovered three topic areas that internal stakeholders felt should be given more consideration in our ESG strategy: artificial intelligence, green finance, and biodiversity.
"W e're all stewards of this planet and we all have the obligation to protect and preserve the environment for generations to come."
Internal stakeholder
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
17
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.2 Our materiality assessment: focusing on what matters
"Over the course of 2021 and early 2022 ERM supported DLA Piper to conduct its first double materiality assessment. The assessment included a current state analysis of the business, industry, and ESG trends, as well as the broad engagement of global internal and external stakeholders, to validate and prioritise the ESG topics identified as relevant to the firm. Throughout this process, DLA Piper have demonstrated an ambition to align with global best practice in materiality which has provided a solid foundation to support the development of the firm's ESG strategy."
Nicolas Heath, Principal Consultant, Sustainability Strategy & Disclosure, ERM
"It's a business-critical issue on all fronts from the client perspective but also internally. It revolves around our value perspective but also recruiting and retaining the right people."
Internal stakeholder
What's next
Following the materiality assessment, we held a senior leadership workshop to review how we're currently performing in our top six material issues and agree an ambition level for where we'd like to be.
Our senior leadership agreed that they'd like to see DLA Piper reach for Leadership level or above for each of the top six material issues, with Net Zero transition, nurturing talent and diversity and inclusion scoring highest on the ambition spectrum.
We're now in the process of refreshing our roadmaps for each of these six areas to ensure our plans and targets are in line with these levels of ambition.
In the second half of 2022, we also began to engage our key operational leads and regional leaders on the findings around the remaining nine material issues. We're reviewing our performance and plans, and will report on progress in next year's report.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
18
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.3 Our sustainability strategy and roadmap
1.3 Our sustainability strategy and roadmap
Our sustainability strategy and material issues
The sustainability strategy and priorities covered in this report are based on the findings of our materiality assessment (see section 1.2 Our materiality assessment).
Our sustainability strategy is organised in five thematic areas:
Our people Our clients Our environment Our society Sound governance
Our 15 material issues are covered across these five themes. Each of the themes are interdependent and should not be viewed in isolation.
Our people Diversity, mobility & inclusion Employee health & wellbeing Nurturing talent
Sound governance ESG risks & governance Labour & human rights Professional integrity Ethical protection & use of data Stakeholder dialogue
Our environment Net Zero transition Operational footprint Circular economy Green supply chain
Our clients Client advice on ESG
Our society Social justice & capacity building Community impact
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
19
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 1.3 Our sustainability strategy and roadmap
Like many of our peers, we have made more progress in some of our material issues than in others. For example, some issues have measurable targets or goals in place (such as Net Zero transition and diversity and inclusion), while in others we're still working to assess our performance.
To close these gaps, we're gathering baseline performance data across key areas so we can define our ambitions and set meaningful targets. This will also allow us to report on our performance in a way that's more closely aligned to best practice, as well to have the right insights for improving our governance and management systems.
For large global law firms like ours, these business transformations come with certain challenges. We have operations in many very diverse parts of the world, with differing approaches to sustainability. Our partnership structure means that major changes may take time (although this structure ultimately leads to better decisions). The uniquely challenging role of law in sustainability is also important for us to unpack.
You can read more about our goals and activities and plans for our key material issues in this report.
Key strategic priorities
Climate transition plan
We're working to develop our climate transition plan. This involves having our Net Zero target validated by the SBTi and ensuring we have a plan for meeting this target. As part of the process, we're also finalising our climate change risk and opportunity analysis, embedding climate (and wider ESG) risk management into our governance structures, and implementing new frameworks for client intake.
Impact of client advice
We're working to better understand the impact of our client advice to clients. We're starting by exploring how we can affect climate outcomes via our work with clients. In time, we'll expand this to other environmental and social impacts.
Social impact
We're also exploring how we can better understand and measure the social impact of the firm as a whole. You can read more about our plans and initial research in section 4.1 Social impact.
Data governance and insights
Finally, we're continuing to focus on improving our data governance systems, so we have the right and reliable information to make sound decisions, and so we can continue to improve our transparency and accountability.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
20
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 2.0 Our People
2.0 Our People
We're a team of more than 6,500 lawyers and business services professionals in more than 30 countries around the world. We're committed to building a workplace that's as diverse as the clients and communities we serve, and where everyone can thrive.
50% fee earners 50% business services
58% female 42% male
2,111 new employees hired in 21/22
6,719 lawyers and business services professionals internationally
Read on: 2.1 Diversity and inclusion 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing 2.3 Nurturing talent
35% UK 45% Europe 4% Middle East and Africa 16% Asia Pacific
From left to right: Megan Mosey, D&I Specialist, Human Resources, Natalya Lozovaya, Senior ESG Manager, Responsible Business, Ahmed Adji Sukma, Associate, Litigation and Regulatory, Daniel Adeyemi, Associate, Responsible Business and Mariam Sheikh, Senior ESG Analyst, Responsible Business.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Sustainability Report 21/22
> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
2.1 Diversity and inclusion
We recognise the value inclusion, equity and representation bring to our business. We actively seek out ways to harness the uniqueness of every colleague and draw on our individual experiences and perspectives to deliver a better service for our clients.
Our performance in 2021/22: 23% of our partners are women, up from 21% in previous year.
44% of our new partnership promotions were female, up from 24% in previous year.
53% of our partnership promotions were from underrepresented groups against our goal of 50%*.
19% of senior management roles** are held by women.
77% of business services colleagues are from underrepresented groups*.
From right to left: Jon Hayes, Senior Partner and Global Co-chair, Corporate Management, Megan Mosey, D&I Specialist, Human Resources, Dylan Carty, Associate, Corporate and Francesca Corradini, Senior Marketing & Business Development Manager.
*Underrepresented groups are defined as female, LGBT+, minority ethnic groups, disability and those from lower socioeconomic background. Gender is reported across DLA Piper International offices, and other diversity characteristics are based on UK offices only.
**Senior management includes International Sector Heads, International Country Managing Partners, International Practice Heads, and the Exec.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Our impacts
Despite progress in certain areas, lack of diversity remains a challenge for the legal profession, especially at senior levels. According to a 2022 survey by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in the UK, just 31% of partners in the largest UK law firms are women, and only 8% of partners identify as being Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic group. The largest firms also have the greatest proportion of privately educated lawyers, with just 17% coming from a lower socioeconomic background.
This matters for our business. There's now widespread recognition that firms that can draw on diverse perspectives and experiences are more innovative, are better equipped to manage risk, and deliver better work for their clients.
As the value of D&I becomes more widely acknowledged, clients increasingly expect diversity in their legal teams, with D&I now a common requirement in pitches and requests for proposals. Firms that fail to take action to improve diversity are not only reinforcing social inequalities in the legal profession and wider society, but are also affecting their innovation and competitiveness, and putting their own financial stability at risk.
These sentiments are backed up by DLA Piper's own materiality assessment. Out of 15 material issues, our internal and external stakeholders ranked diversity, mobility and inclusion at number two, just behind Net Zero transition.
During the assessment, stakeholders recognised that D&I is an important theme within the legal sector and society at large, with industry associations advocating for more equality and mobility for minority groups.
Our commitments
Our vision is to create an inclusive culture across the firm: one in which people can thrive, and which our clients recognise as best in class.
We're working to embed diversity and inclusion fully into our business strategy and ensure it's reflected in our business purpose. This means D&I is a business imperative and is reflected in business outcomes, client outcomes, and societal outcomes.
In early 2021, we began our journey towards balanced representation by setting our international D&I goals.
As our diversity data collection and analysis matures, we'll begin setting and tracking against country-level targets. These may focus on ethnicity, disability or LGBT+ metrics, depending on the needs and priorities of each country. We're also looking at developing D&I plans that are specific to practice groups and business services functions.
Newly promoted partners from underrepresented* groups
100
80 60 55.5% 40
53%
50% target
%%
20
0 2020/21
2021/22
Business services colleagues coming from underrepresented* groups
100
80 66%
60
77%
40
20
0
2020/21
2021/22
*Underrepresented groups are defined as female, LGBT+, minority ethnic groups, disability and those from lower socioeconomic background. Gender is reported across DLA Piper International offices, and other diversity characteristics are based on UK offices only.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
23
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
D&I GOVERNANCE
Meeting every quarter, our International D&I Council is responsible for the governance and management of D&I as a strategic business imperative. The Council reports directly to the Executive and the Board, where D&I is a standing agenda item. During 2021/22 the Board was updated twice on the firm's progress against D&I goals.
The Council is chaired by our CEO Simon Levine. Our Senior Partner Jon Hayes sits on the Council. It's supported locally by two regional D&I Committees in Asia Pacific and EMEA. These groups connect and share ideas across countries and drive change in each region. They each meet up to three times a year to review D&I data and progress and hold the business to account.
The Chair of each of the regional committees acts as the link between the regional committee and the Council by sitting on the Council and ensuring two-way communication. Partner sponsors of each of the firm's Employee Networks are also invited to Council meetings to provide updates.
Actions we're taking
Creating a better evidence base for decisions
Improving diversity depends on gathering data to gain an accurate understanding of people's experiences within the firm. We are putting in place systems to begin closely monitoring the diversity, sense of wellbeing and belonging across all levels and areas of our firm.
In 2022 we began reviewing our data capture methods to ensure they are culturally appropriate across our jurisdictions. We're also working to ensure we have the right processes in place to use the data effectively, and draw out useful, timely and actionable insights.
Embedding inclusive behaviours
An inclusive culture requires inclusive behaviour, not just at leadership level, but throughout our firm. We encourage and embed inclusive behaviour in several ways:
Our people networks play an important role in supporting, connecting and educating our people around D&I issues.
We regularly share and promote our colleagues' personal stories, showcasing the diverse voices and experiences of our people.
We launched an inclusion e-learning module across our firm. Named `Building an Inclusive Culture', the module explores topics such as bias in the workplace and explains the contribution that all our people can make in creating an inclusive environment.
We highlight how bias at management and leadership levels can hinder diversity. To date, over half of our partners have had face-to-face unconscious bias training, and all senior leaders have completed an Inclusive Leadership programme in the last 12 months.
We support all our colleagues in finding the right balance between home and office working, accommodating people with diverse needs and circumstances that require greater flexibility.
We measure the inclusivity of our culture through our employee engagement surveys. We include questions that help us understand how our people feel about the firm's culture across several areas, such as whether they feel comfortable talking about their background and cultural experiences, or if they feel opportunities for advancement are available to everyone.
81% In our May 2022 employee engagement survey, 81% of our people said they feel `DLA Piper's culture is inclusive to all people regardless of differences.'
84% In our May 2022 employee engagement survey, 84% of our people said that their manager supports equality.
75% In our May 2022 employee engagement survey, 75% of our people said they can bring their whole self to work.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
24
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Attracting diverse talent
We work to ensure we're attracting and recruiting lawyers and business services professionals from a broad range of backgrounds. We do this in different ways, depending on role and level of seniority:
For senior roles, we tell our recruitment suppliers and head-hunters about our D&I strategy and goals, and benchmark ourselves to understand how our recruitment compares with our peers.
For early career roles, we use contextualised recruitment software and strengths-based assessments to understand a candidate's potential.
For business services and legal roles (including solicitors), we run apprenticeship programmes.
Improving gender balance at senior levels
Although DLA Piper has a fairly even gender balance in most areas of the firm, lack of female representation in senior positions continues to be a challenge for us, and for the legal profession as a whole. To address the issue, we've begun tracking and analysing movement in the firm by gender, and applying a proportional approach to create a strong pipeline of female talent at all levels.
For example, in 2020 we began monitoring the distribution of performance ratings between men and women. The results show a balanced distribution of ratings. However, it's important we continue to monitor distribution so we can make adjustments as necessary.
While applying a proportional representation approach is important, we know that gender-based cultural differences can also hold women back from senior positions. For example, through analysis of our data we learned that men who met 60% of the criteria for partner promotion were much more likely to apply for the position than equally qualified women. Challenging these ingrained attitudes requires female role models and mentors colleagues with seniority and influence who can play an active role in providing support.
To help address this need, in January 2021 we launched Elevate a 12-month sponsorship pilot programme that matches individuals from underrepresented groups with leadership potential (including women) with senior partner sponsors. The pilot had a transformative effect on those who took part.
Gender diversity in partnership
100
Participants told us that Elevate created a sense of community and built connections, boosted confidence, and helped demystify the partner promotions process.
Our second Elevate Cohort launched in February 2022 with 26 proteges from 12 countries. This year the programme has been enhanced through a partnership with Moving Ahead, who provide coaching, sponsorship circles and regular check-ins with proteges and sponsors.
We also know that women on the cusp of being promoted to partner may face additional challenges due to societal pressures, health factors and personal circumstances that men of the same age may not. This is why we've introduced a suite of new benefits that aim to level the playing field, such as free access to support regarding menopause, fertility, pregnancy and early parenthood, and men's health.
Gender diversity and role progression
80
64% female trainees.
60
% partners who are women
40 20%
20
21%
23%
30% target
40% target
0 2019/20
2020/21
2021/22
2025
2030
Figures are taken as of May 1 following the end of each FY listed. For example, the figure for 2021/22 is as of May 1, 2022. This is to ensure we are stating data from the most recent promotion round.
52% female lawyers. 23% female partners.
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4.0 Our Society
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Women in partner promotions
% women in partner promotions
100
80
60
40 22%
20
33%
44%
0
2019/20
2020/21
2021/22
Women in career development academy programmes
57% of participants on our career development academy programmes were women.
42% of participants in our Career Pathways leadership programme in 2021 were women (ahead of our yearly target of 40%).
Gender diversity in senior management in 2022
Women
Men
% women/men in senior management roles
100 14%
80 86%
60
14% 86%
17% 83%
40
20
0
Country Managing Partners
Practice Heads
Sector Heads
% legal roles hired externally in 21/22 by gender
% women/men hired externally
Women 100 80 60 40 20 0
Men 20% 80%
Partners
49% 51%
41% 59%
Legal Director / Senior Lead Lawyer /
Counsel
Senior Associate / Lead Lawyer
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Elevate in numbers
The first year of the Elevate programme significantly increased the number of people from underrepresented* groups submitting a business case for partnership.
25 protgs from 10 countries and 7 practice groups took part.
60% of women who submitted a business case participated in the Elevate pilot.
11 of the 34 partner promotes in 2022 were protgs on the Elevate programme.
* Underrepresented groups are defined as Female, LGBT+, minority ethnic groups, disability, and those from lower socioeconomic background.
Elevate was shortlisted in the Expansin Jurdico Awards 2021 for `Best Project in Diversity and Inclusion.' The award is part of the Legal Awards for Excellence in the Practice of Business Law organised by Spain's leading financial newspaper Expansin Jurdico. The programme has also been shortlisted in the Wind Investment Awards 2022, a platform celebrating best practice in the global onshore and offshore wind industry.
Gender diversity and employee retention
The legal profession is facing an employee retention challenge. Caused in part by a shift in priorities following the pandemic, employee turnover has been unprecedently high across the sector over the past year. For example, in 2021 some professional services companies reported turnover rates of 17% or even 20%. DLA Piper ended the financial year with voluntary turnover at 15.7%, the highest level at the end of Q4 for four years. Breaking the figures down by gender shows that, over the last 18 months, more women than men left every month.
Tackling the issue effectively depends on understanding the reasons behind the high turnover rate and our data shows that there are gender differences in the reasons employees give for wanting to leave. For example, more women than men cited the need for career development and promotion as their primary reason for deciding to leave, while more men than women cited wanting a career change as their primary reason. However, both women and men ranked career development/promotion and career change as their two most important primary reasons for leaving. Both men and women also in nearly-equal proportion cited flexibility, work-life, and personal commitments as a significant reason.
The New Deal, our new employee proposition, takes these gender differences into account, addressing the specific challenges faced by both men and women. For example, through the New Deal, we've committed to providing colleagues with flexible working arrangements, as well as fair and equal pay across our firm.
ADDRESSING OUR GENDER AND ETHNICITY PAY GAPS
We're working to reduce pay gaps as an important part of our efforts to strengthen our inclusive culture. Read more about our UK and Australian pay gap reporting and results in our Regional Highlights report.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
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4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Improving socioeconomic diversity
To uphold the rule of law, it's vital that lawyers and law firms reflect their communities. At DLA Piper we believe that factors such as the school a person attended, or the jobs their parents or carer did, should never be a barrier to entering and succeeding in the legal profession.
Building on our UK social mobility agenda (see our Regional Highlights report), we're rolling out an international strategy to address socioeconomic inequities in different regions. This will include monitoring the socioeconomic diversity of our workforce, gathering insights about the experience of colleagues from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and tracking and reporting on their progression rates.
One Voice Made of Many
Storytelling can be a powerful tool in building an inclusive culture. Stories give us unique insights into other people's lived experiences and seeing our own hopes and struggles reflected in the stories of others helps build an empowering sense of belonging. That was the idea behind One Voice Made of Many: a campaign launched in March 2021 bringing together open, honest and personal stories from across the firm.
The campaign was widely viewed and shared on our social media platforms, and has helped drive behavioural change in our firm. Our staff survey in October 2021 reflected this, with 84% recommending DLA Piper as a place to work, and 84% feeling our culture is inclusive.
We recognise that socioeconomic background is intricately linked to other already protected diversity characteristics and see the benefits of an active and integrated approach to diversity and inclusion. In 2022 we will focus on developing our international social mobility action plan and working with clients and other key stakeholders on mutually rewarding social mobility activities.
In January 2022, One Voice Made of Many was recognised as a leading D&I initiative in PR Week's Corporate, City & Public Affairs Awards. The campaign was also recognised in Law.com's Legal Innovation Awards 2022, where it was shortlisted in the PR and communications category. In Spain, the campaign was shortlisted in the Best D&I Initiative category in the VII Expansin Legal Awards.
Read more about our social mobility goals and progress in our Regional Highlights report, and in our forthcoming Advancing Socioeconomic Diversity report.
One Voice Made of Many campaign in numbers 77,500 total views. 5,400+ engagements . 45 pieces of press coverage.
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4.0 Our Society
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Since the campaign's launch in March 2021, we've heard stories from six colleagues.
Pilar Menor, Global Co-Chair for Employment and Senior Partner for Spain, talks about being the only woman in the room, why progression shouldn't mean sacrifices you can't afford, and why we need to break the menopause taboo.
Waseeqah Makadam, Director in Johannesburg, talks about growing up on the Cape Flats, finding pride in what makes her special, and her hopes for South Africa.
Syed Ayub, Property & Workplace Team Leader in Dubai, tells us about growing up in Pakistan, finding courage to overcome adversity, and why everyone's voices must be heard.
Felix Ndi-Obiosa, FP&R Of Counsel in London, reflects on his challenges and positive experiences as a black lawyer and talks candidly about the need for change and how to make it happen.
Heng Loong Cheong, Partner in Hong Kong, shares how, some time ago, he became overdependent on alcohol, the impact on his wellbeing, and how he found a healthier and more sustainable way of living.
Emily Kellett, HR Business Partner for our Sheffield office, shares her experience of living with a hearing impairment. We learn about some of the often invisible challenges Emily faces, and get tips on how we can be more aware and supportive of our colleagues with impaired hearing.
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Employee networks
Our employee networks play a vital role in strengthening the inclusivity of our culture, driving diversity and supporting our people. The networks act as powerful advocacy platforms for colleagues from underrepresented groups, ensuring that their voices are heard at management level and holding leadership to account for delivering on diversity goals.
PEOPLE NETWORK LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
We launched our first People Network Leadership Development Programme in May with 144 participants from 6 people networks across 12 countries. It was designed to give people network leaders Executive Sponsors, Chairs and with wider Steering Committee a structured programme to develop our leaders across key areas: having strategic level discussions, developing intersectional cross-network collaboration, driving allyship, mapping and delivering 2022-23 network plans that align to strategic priorities and how we measure impact.
The programme was designed by our D&I and the Leadership and Talent teams and is being delivered by an external partner, Huma Qasi of SYNERGIES, New Inclusion and The Privilege Project.
Gender balance
LAW (Leadership Alliance for Women) is DLA Piper's International gender balance network. The group works to support gender balance at all levels by strengthening the influence, leadership and voice of women in our firm to effect change.
To celebrate International Women's Day 2022, LAW hosted a series of virtual panel events to discuss critical gender issues throughout March. The programme showcased the perspectives of our clients, our rising star associates, next generation partners and business services colleagues. The discussions provided a platform to celebrate the powerful contributions of our female talent in DLA Piper and challenge workplace bias.
LGBT+ inclusion
The Iris network is the voice, contact point and support mechanism for LGBT+ people and their allies at DLA Piper. The network engages the firm's colleagues, clients and communities on LGBT+ issues, working closely with external partners such as Stonewall in the UK, Pride In Diversity in Australia and the Lawyers for LGBT+ and Allies Network in Japan.
To celebrate WorldPride 2021, Iris hosted its first ever virtual conference across both EMEA and APAC. Other recent activities included employee engagement sessions in February 2022 on topics such as sexuality and religion to mark LGBT+ History Month.
IRIS REPRESENTS
Iris Represents is the pro bono wing of our LGBT+ network, pushing for fair legal representation and an end to discrimination for LGBT+ communities worldwide.
Examples of the group's activities in 2021/22 included a case in Sri Lanka leading to a landmark UN decision that criminalisation of same-sex intimacy between women is a human rights violation. The case sets a major legal precedent that protects the rights of lesbian and bisexual women everywhere.
Through Iris Represents, DLA Piper lawyers also contributed to the Global Marriage Equality Survey for Lawyers for LGBT+ Allies Network in Japan. This survey provides an overview of laws in 11 countries where same-sex marriage is legally recognised and will be used to support the push towards the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Japan.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Working families
PACT (Parents and Carers Together) is a growing employee network in the UK that supports people who have caring responsibilities. The network provides information, resources and support on a range of topics, including advice about flexible working, as well as engaging with clients and communities.
In Australia we have the Parents and Carers Buddy Program, a support group for working parents and carers. Launched in April 2022, the program provides a platform for sharing experiences, seeking and providing reassurance, and discussing the challenges faced by working professionals with caring responsibilities.
Race, ethnicity and cultural diversity
Mosaic is our UK racial and ethnic diversity network. Mosaic promotes race fluency, creating opportunities and environments for our people to have conversations about race and ethnicity with comfort, clarity and confidence. The network also works closely with our leaders to raise awareness of challenges relating to race and ethnicity, equipping them to be allies and change makers.
In the past year, Mosaic activities have included running a reverse mentoring programme for the UK's senior leadership team, which saw many of our senior leaders being mentored by junior ethnic minority colleagues. The network also hosted Race Matters masterclasses to mark the anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, and celebrated Black History Month 2021 with a special event exploring racial equality, featuring renowned historian David Olusoga as guest speaker.
Ability inclusion, including neurodiversity
Enabled is our international ability people network, supporting anyone affected by a disability, neurodiversity, or physical or mental wellbeing issue, and breaking down barriers to ability inclusion in the workplace.
Enabled was launched in December 2021, coinciding with International Day of Persons with Disabilities. During the launch, members of the Steering Committee shared a video of their personal stories, including their experience of disability. Other recent activities included an event to mark Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2022, featuring guest speaker Professor Amanda Kirby.
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4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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> 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
At DLA Piper, the health and wellbeing of our people is extremely important to us and we're striving to create a culture where good work and good health go hand in hand.
74% Employee Engagement Index score (October 2021).
70% of our people believe the firm offers sufficient flexibility to balance their work and home life (May 2022).
4 times the Board discussed health and wellbeing topics this year.
Stephen Carter-Mcleod, Senior Marketing and Business Development Manager.
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> 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
Our impacts
Law is a rewarding profession, but also a challenging one. Employees can at times face long hours and overwhelming workloads, with the pandemic and an industry-wide talent shortage dialling up the pressure and the risk of burnout. This can affect mental health, with knock-on impacts on work quality. According to a Lawcare report published in September 2021, more than two-thirds of lawyers in the UK have suffered mental ill-health.
Given this stark picture, it's not surprising that employee health and wellbeing is a top sustainability priority for our stakeholders. In our materiality assessment, internal and external stakeholders ranked employee health and wellbeing as the fifth most important issue out of 15 ESG topics. For our lawyers and business service employees, the issue ranked at number one.
Client expectations and how we manage them have a major influence on employee wellbeing. On the one hand, client demands can contribute pressures that can lead to mental ill health. On the other hand, there is growing recognition from clients that good health results in good work, and therefore we are seeing a much greater focus from them on employee wellbeing a fact confirmed by our materiality assessment. Maintaining a healthy workplace depends on finding the right balance between these competing priorities.
As a professional services business, our risk of workplace accidents is low compared with businesses in other sectors such as manufacturing. However, accidents can happen, and we view workplace safety as a high priority alongside mental health and wellbeing.
"I think we could do more to identify people that are at risk through the data we collect."
Internal stakeholder
"S ince COVID-19, we've become used to managing our own time from home. This has made finding a healthy work-life balance an even bigger issue for the legal industry."
Internal stakeholder
"H ow law firms look after their employees influences talent attraction and retention. It's very important."
External stakeholder
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> 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
Our commitments
Our health and wellbeing strategy focuses on three key areas:
1. Raising awareness To remove the stigma around the issue and make it easier for our people to reach out for help, we encourage open discussions about health and wellbeing in the workplace. Examples include the mental health events we hold with TLC Lions, an organisation dedicated to driving behavioural change in the workplace, and campaigns that shine a spotlight on the experiences of our people such as our One Voice Made of Many campaign. Read more about these and similar initiatives in this chapter.
2. Meeting diverse needs To ensure all our people are supported, we work to embed a diverse variety of skills and good health and wellbeing practices throughout our firm. We do this through initiatives such as our SPEAK Ambassador Programme, which trains colleagues in how to manage conversations about mental health, and Positive Leaders, which trains managers in spotting issues early and building emotionally resilient teams. Read more about these programmes below.
3. Delivering the right care at the right time Through services such as our MyCare international Employee Assistance Programme, we ensure that our people can access the care that's right for them, whenever they need it. As well as providing reactive support, we're also committed to preventing health and wellbeing issues before they happen. Examples include policies that help colleagues find the right work/life balance, such as our flexible working policy.
MANAGING WORKPLACE SAFETY
Workplace safety plays an important role in health and wellbeing, and we aim to foster a culture where all these aspects are treated holistically. Alongside our initiatives to support mental health, we have a management system in place to reduce the risk of accidents, injuries and illness. The system ensures a consistent approach to safety across our international offices, and is supported by our International Health and Safety Policy.
All incidents and related information are recorded in our Incidents Register. We use the register as the basis for designing new incident prevention strategies and improving our control measures. In the last year, we have had two work-related injuries.
We're already certified against ISO 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems) in the UK, and we plan to roll out certification to other international offices. We're also considering implementing the guidance provided in ISO 45003 standard for managing psychosocial risks in the workplace.
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4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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Making it easy to seek help and support
We want to make sure colleagues know how to access health and wellbeing support. We raise awareness of the support available to our people from the point of recruitment onwards for example, by including health and wellbeing training modules in our learning and development plans. We encourage anyone who feels they need support to reach out either to their manager, or their HR representative.
Alongside our internal resources, colleagues and their families can access external support covering any aspect of health and wellbeing through the MyCare international Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). The helpline service is available at any time or online through our service provider's website and app.
Because the health needs of our people vary by region, our international EAP service is complimented by health and wellbeing benefits that are specific to our local regions.
Supporting our colleagues' mental health
Through initiatives such as our SPEAK Ambassador programme, we seek to create an environment where colleagues feel comfortable discussing mental health challenges. To reassure colleagues that they can raise mental health concerns freely and safely, we make it clear that any information they disclose will be used for no other reason than to support them.
Nurturing a healthy workplace culture
Through our Positive Leaders programme, we give leaders training on how to build resilient and connected teams, and how to spot the problems early. We monitor workloads in different ways across our international practice groups and intervene where the health and wellbeing of our colleagues is being affected.
We address mental health concerns in several ways. Depending on the nature of the challenge, options could include:
a workload review, or reallocating work
We have adjusted our bonus system to move away from a culture that rewards long working hours, and ensure colleagues take advantage of their holiday allocation.
a referral for external medical advice, or treatment (including the EAP)
a return-to-work programme facilitated by HR, or an external provider, in cases where a colleague has taken long-term leave.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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HEALTH AND WELLBEING GOVERNANCE
Our International Health and Wellbeing Steering Committee oversees our health and wellbeing strategy. Made up of leaders from across the firm, the committee meets regularly to review progress, discuss strategy implementation and gain executive sponsorship where necessary. Health and wellbeing have continued to be a regular feature in our Boardroom agenda.
The Chair of the committee is a partner and member of the board and holds a seat at the International Diversity Council to ensure our health and wellbeing strategy aligns with our D&I strategy.
Our local health and wellbeing working groups deliver local events to support initiatives set by our international steering committee. The working groups advocate for our approach and provide support and resources at local level.
GROWING OUR SPEAK AMBASSADORS PROGRAMME
Our SPEAK ambassadors are colleagues who have been specially trained in how to have conversations about mental health, providing front line, confidential support for anyone in the firm with mental health concerns. Our ambition is to have ambassadors in all our offices and we're continuing to work towards that goal, expanding the programme while keeping our existing ambassadors engaged and motivated.
In 2021 we took steps to grow the programme, including training three new SPEAK facilitators and launching training sessions for ambassadors on the DLA Piper Academy, our internal learning and development platform. As a result, we doubled our number of trained ambassadors compared with last year, bringing the total to over 200 across 28 offices.
Pledges and memberships
We are signatories of the Mindful Business Charter, which outlines recommendations for promoting better mental health in the workplace. As signatories, we engage our clients and other stakeholders to share best practice on this issue.
We follow the charter's guidelines in many of our own working practices. For example, we periodically run campaigns to raise awareness of good mental health practices (last year's campaign focused on the importance of respecting rest periods). To understand how we can best implement the charter recommendations, we also have monthly meetings with other signatories to gain insights into what works and what doesn't.
We have committed to several other pledges, charters and memberships related to health and wellbeing around the world. In Australia, we're founding members of the Corporate Mental Health Alliance, and in Hong Kong we're members of the City Mental Health Alliance, which brings businesses together to work towards improving mental health in the workplace. These initiatives allow us to benchmark ourselves against the external community, helping us identify new opportunities to support our people.
200 We currently have over 200 trained SPEAK ambassadors across our firm (up from less than 100 in 2020).
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Actions we're taking
Resilience in a time of crisis
With the global pandemic and the war in Ukraine, it can feel as if we're living in an era of never-ending crisis. This can take a heavy emotional toll, leaving us feeling powerless, anxious and exhausted. We recognise the impact this can have on our colleagues, and we've developed initiatives to help them manage their emotions and stay resilient in the face of these challenges.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit we launched our online coronavirus hub, with guidance on coping with the demands of remote working. Other initiatives included a refreshed flexible working policy and a resilience programme to help our people navigate the stresses of lockdown. In 2021 we continued to focus on our COVID-19 response, evolving our approach to keep it relevant across all countries as the situation developed.
The humanitarian crisis created by the war in Ukraine has affected many of our colleagues. In response, we've made our EAP mental health support service available to any of our colleagues' friends or family members who have been affected by the war. Working with psychologists from Positive Group (see below), we also ran crisis training sessions to support colleagues dealing with the trauma of war and other crises in their work, with special sessions for our leadership, HR and Pro Bono teams.
Amid all the crises humanity currently faces, climate change increasingly stands out as the single greatest emergency of our times. To help employees manage the mental health impacts of the climate crisis, we've integrated climate anxiety into our Carbon Literacy training. The updated training helps colleagues channel their anxieties into positive climate action and provides resources that can help.
For more about our response to the war in Ukraine, see section 4.2 Social justice and capacity building. For more on our Carbon Literacy training and employee engagement on climate, see section 2.3 Nurturing talent.
What our people said about their experience at DLA Piper
73% believe DLA Piper shows care and concern for its people.
67% feel they have someone at work to whom they can speak openly about health and wellbeing.
78% feel part of a supportive team.
70% feel they have the flexibility they need to manage their work and home life.
Source: October 2021 employee engagement survey
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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Partnerships and events
Partnering with external experts is an important part of our health and wellbeing approach. One of our main partnerships is with Positive Group, a specialist learning provider dedicated to improving workplace health and wellbeing through applied psychology and neuroscience. Among a range of topics, Positive Group provides specialist training to equip colleagues with the emotional resilience to deal with crises such as the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Another key partnership is with TLC Lions, an organisation that uses the power of storytelling to transform workplaces. Through the partnership, we deliver a range of events where speakers share inspiring stories to encourage conversation and deepen understanding about mental health. We also work with TLC Lions to raise awareness of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
We also celebrate external campaigns such as World Mental Health Day (WMHD) to raise awareness of mental health issues at work.
HUMAN-SHAPED LEADERSHIP
In 2022 we will sponsor the inaugural TLC Lions' Being Human Awards an event that celebrates organisations and individuals who lead with a human approach. As well as inspiring other companies to do the right thing when it comes to looking after employee wellbeing, the event is a great opportunity to engage with our clients on mental health issues and find the right balance between meeting expectations and managing stress. Jonathan Watkins, Partner and Chair of our Health and Wellbeing Steering Committee will be one of the judges for the awards.
"During the pandemic, Positive Group provided actionable techniques to help DLA Piper employees to help them manage their mental health. DLA Piper is working hard to recognise the importance of wellbeing and to build a culture that reflects this."
Hattie Crosthwaite Eyre, Positive Group Chief Operating Officer
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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Tracking our effectiveness
We regularly seek feedback from our colleagues to gauge the effectiveness of our health and wellbeing initiatives and refine our approach.
In 2021 we ran two short surveys in the early part of the year, followed by a major employee engagement survey in October. The survey found that, while our overall Engagement Index has increased by 6% points since 2019, it has dropped slightly since July 2021, suggesting there's still work to be done. We believe that the fall may be related to the pandemic, and the impact it's had on people's morale.
In the survey, the most common response to the question "What would improve your employee experience?" was "wellbeing." The survey also revealed that "connection with colleagues," "opportunities for development," and "working for a reputable firm" were the main reasons our colleagues could see themselves working with DLA Piper for three years or more.
In 2023 we plan to update our methodology for measuring our performance. Alongside our surveys, we will also begin to use other metrics such as online analytics, training participation and EAP use.
Our updated whistleblowing mechanism, now managed by a third party, will also help us ensure we have anonymous channels for anyone to raise an issue. It also allows us to more easily track and analyse complaints. Read more about our updates to our whistleblowing mechanism.
80% of our people feel able to manage the everyday pressures that come with their job.
+12% Between 2020 and 2021, the number of employees who feel the firm shows care and concern for its people rose by 12%.
Listening to our stakeholders
Our employee surveys give our leaders, HR members and stakeholder teams valuable insights into our health and wellbeing initiatives, and what motivates and engages our people.
Before each survey we offer training to our HR members to ensure they can use the insights effectively in local action planning. After each survey we provide a report to our local leadership and HR leads that outlines their jurisdiction's results.
In the countries where we collect demographic data, we also give our employee groups the opportunity to view data that may influence the initiatives they work on. For instance, we share the breakdown of survey data by sexual orientation and gender identity with our HR team in Australia to support their submission to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency report.
What's next
In 2022 we'll continue to understand and address systemic workplace health and wellbeing challenges. For example, we'll work with our HR teams to build a process to identify the risk of burnout.
We'll also continue to monitor the use of our EAP service to ensure it's being used at the same rate as our EAP provider's client base. In particular, we will look to promote the service in areas where we have a high headcount but low use rate.
Following our success in 2021 in doubling our number of SPEAK Ambassadors, we'll continue to focus on expanding the programme, working towards our aim of having ambassadors in all our offices worldwide.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 2.3 Nurturing talent
2.3 Nurturing talent
We want everyone at DLA Piper to thrive both professionally and personally. We're committed to investing in our people so they can do their best work, grow in their careers and succeed, whether at DLA Piper or beyond.
60% of our lawyers have given their time to pro bono projects in 2021.
170+ local eMission 2030 champions are working towards our climate goal.
74% overall firmwide engagement score.
83% would recommend DLA Piper as a good place to work.
650+ DLA Piper people are serving as mentors to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
GBP3m was invested into employee training and development in FY21/22.
From left to right: Natalya Lozovaya, Senior ESG Manager, Responsible Business and Katie Ball, Learning and Development Manager, Human Resources.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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Our impacts
As an organisation of more than 6,000 people, creating a nurturing environment where people can grow is a key strategic issue for DLA Piper. Through our materiality exercise we identified nurturing talent as the sixth most important issue for DLA Piper among 15 material issues.
When people feel their careers are being supported, they're more likely to feel engaged and fulfilled, and to deliver their best work. Ensuring our talent and career processes are equitable and our people have ongoing access to learning and development is important for attracting and retaining the best talent. Nurturing our people supports our diversity and inclusion strategy, helping to ensure balanced representation at all levels of our firm.
As a values-driven organisation, it's important that our people feel motivated and engaged by our purpose. By offering training around ESG issues, we ensure that our people feel rewarded not just financially, but through meaningful work that makes a positive contribution to the world.
As well as benefitting our firm, nurturing our talent also benefits society. Equipping people with transferable skills that they can use beyond DLA Piper contributes to financial security and economic stability. It also helps break down social inequalities by building a diverse talent pipeline.
While nurturing talent is important for the whole firm, priorities in this area vary across our different regions. We take these regional nuances into account when designing our learning and development initiatives.
Our commitments
We're committed to helping our colleagues grow, supporting them on their career paths, and enabling them to have a fulfilling life outside of work. This includes providing high-quality training, growth opportunities, a modern work environment and good benefits.
The New Deal
The relationship between law firms and their employees is changing fast. The pandemic introduced unprecedented flexibility around working from home and a shift in focus away from hours spent in the office. But this is just the start of an even more profound transformation ahead an evolution that reflects wider changes in technology and society, and the role of the legal profession in this context. In an intensely competitive market for talent, we need to be at the forefront of this transformation.
This is the basis of the New Deal our new employee proposition. Launched in May 2022, the New Deal reaffirms our commitment to nurturing our people, while also redefining our relationship with our employees in line with modern expectations.
Through the New Deal, we're addressing a number of important needs. This includes providing greater support for the many talented people who work in law firms but are not lawyers, and providing fairer and more equal pay across our firm, regardless of location. We're creating new routes into the business for people from a wider range of communities.
Last but not least, we want to engender a sense of belonging by ensuring that purpose is at the core of our employee proposition. For example, by equipping our lawyers to build climate considerations into the work they do for clients.
THE NEW DEAL IS BASED AROUND THREE PRINCIPLES:
We trust you: trusting every individual and team to find a balance of home and office work that's right for them.
We value you: recognising and rewarding the contribution people make through fair pay and benefits, and by providing the infrastructure and resources to ensure long-term success.
We invest in you: supporting career development, including revitalising opportunities for international development and secondment.
70% Following the introduction of our WorkSmart Flex policy in May 2022 as part of the New Deal, 70% of our people said they feel the firm offers enough flexibility to balance work and home life (up from just 39% in October 2021).
Source: May 2022 engagement survey
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Actions we're taking
Professional development
From formal training to pro bono work opportunities, we provide a range of learning opportunities that our people can use at all stages of their careers, in line with their own needs and preferences. Colleagues can also hone their skills through joining a local office champion group, or external initiatives such as volunteering.
Evolving our learning and development offer
This year we launched our revised learning and development ambition and roadmap. As part of the new approach, we're rolling out a study across our firm to identify the skills we need, now and in the future, to deliver the firm's strategy. The findings will inform our learning and development programmes.
The pandemic has accelerated the development of our digital learning offer, and over the past two years we've moved to a blend of virtual and face-to-face learning. In line with our flexible working policy, we've expanded our curriculum to more effectively provide learning in a hybrid working environment.
While we continue to update our approach to learning internationally, we are also focused on supporting local learning priorities where necessary.
We recognise that people need time and space to take advantage of our learning and development resources, so we're also taking steps to ensure our working environment enables this.
The DLA Piper Academy
The DLA Piper Academy is our one-stop shop for firmwide learning, giving all our people access to targeted training and development plans. Since its launch in 2020, we've gathered extensive feedback from colleagues on the functionality and experience of using the platform. This year we launched an updated version of the Academy, featuring a range of improvements based on these insights.
We're continuing to work on plans to evolve the service, including improving search functionality, widening our learning curriculum, and introducing new digital learning tools and content in different languages. This year we are also working to increase awareness and encourage regular use of the Academy.
A focus on diverse talent
DLA Piper is committed to ensuring balanced representation at all levels across the firm and in supporting those from underrepresented groups to meet their career ambitions. In early 2021 we launched the Elevate sponsorship programme which matches highly valuable talent from underrepresented groups with a senior sponsor from across our international practice. Read more in section 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing.
In late 2022 the firm will launch its Momentum programme with the explicit aim of helping Senior Associates from underrepresented groups progress their career and achieve their career ambitions. This innovative programme will include simulations, exposure to senior leaders and group coaching work.
Supporting emerging careers
Launched in 2021, Early Careers is a new service on the DLA Piper Academy supporting apprentices and graduates at the start of their careers in the firm. Offering line manager training on new and emerging areas within the legal industry, the service acts as a springboard into the profession, ensuring that every apprentice and graduate has an equal opportunity to succeed, regardless of background.
See below for more about our Early Careers programmes.
Talent mapping and succession planning
The firm's talent and succession processes allow us to identify and develop talent at all levels. During each part of the career progression process we place a specific focus on ensuring our talent pools and succession pipelines are diverse, representative and highly supported through a range of career development initiatives and ongoing activity.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Becoming carbon literate
At DLA Piper, managing our climate impacts isn't the role of one department it's everyone's responsibility. It's therefore vital that all our people, including both lawyers and other business service professionals, understand the climate emergency, our own impacts as a business, and how this is relevant to their roles.
In 2022 we rolled out our first Carbon Literacy training programme. Over two days, participating colleagues from all areas of the business learned about the basics of climate science, the firm's carbon impacts, how to talk to others about climate change, reduction opportunities and potential solutions.
As a result of implementing this training the UK firm has been accredited with Bronze status from the Carbon Literacy Project, making DLA Piper the first Carbon Literate law firm.
In the coming year, we will focus on training up our internal network of Carbon Literacy facilitators who will lead Carbon Literacy trainings to our people in the UK and beyond, with the aim of majority of our colleagues becoming carbon literate.
Carbon Literacy training is one step we are taking to ensure that everyone at the firm, no matter their role, gains these critical skills. For more on our climate impacts and the actions we're taking, see section 5.1 Net Zero transition.
"A s the proximity of our climate emergency becomes critical, future based Net Zero targets are being set by countless companies and organisations across all sectors. However, it's clear that a substantive gap exists between individuals' desire to act on climate and awareness of the significance of their own actions in contributing to, or averting, global temperature rise.
The commitment shown by both the DLA Piper's course development working group and the participants of the pilot training, from Speak Carbon's perspective, is highly rewarding. The scale of the roll-out plan, using your upskilled Professional Trainer colleagues, demonstrates DLA Piper's ambition to embed emissions reduction into decision-making throughout the organisation.
Additionally, the influence DLA Piper projects as a role model will undoubtedly encourage climate conscious behaviour change across the legal sector.
Working with DLA Piper's proactive, ambitious team restores faith that `big business' can implement and drive the transition towards a shared future within tolerable climate limits. Speak Carbon look forward to continuing to work with DLA Piper as they implement their Carbon Literacy programme across the UK and potentially beyond."
Michelle Marks, Speak Carbon Collective
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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"The environment clearly matters to people"
Personal perspectives: Carbon Literacy training
NEILL MORLEY, SENIOR LEARNING AND ENGAGEMENT MANAGER, IT IN MANCHESTER
What I learned
My key takeaway was that we have a very real way for everyone across the firm to make a positive contribution to our Net Zero goals, and crucially, we can measure the impact of those contributions.
How it is useful in my role
My role is about helping others to be their best selves at work. How we feel at work has a huge influence not only on how we perform, but on how those around us perform too.
When we know we're making a positive contribution, we feel happier and perform better. The environment clearly matters to most people, and they expect their employer to be making a positive contribution. So this course is a natural extension of my role.
My honest opinion
Our firm's identity is defined by every one of us. Everyone who works here is a business professional, and to be professional by today's standards means taking responsibility for our sustainability agenda and encouraging others to do likewise.
Quite often our clients are also our suppliers, and every supplier is a potential client. Engaging with them on ESG issues builds trusting relationships and makes business better. It's a real win-win situation.
I learnt the phrase `reciprocal causation' on the course, and I believe it applies perfectly in this instance. Making the world better and making business better go hand in hand, so let's keep it headed in the right direction!
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
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From left to right: Awmaima Amrayaf, Pro Bono Legal Officer, Responsible Business and Daniel Adeyemi, Associate, Responsible Business.
Pro Bono and community involvement
Getting involved in community activities and pro bono work provides valuable learning opportunities for our people. We provide opportunities for our lawyers to work pro bono to strengthen civil society and support vulnerable individuals, and for our business services colleagues to apply their professional skills to non-profit causes.
We also encourage all our colleagues to volunteer as mentors on our flagship outreach initiatives, such as Head Start and our Global Scholarships Programme.
In 2022 we launched the Pro Bono Portal, which streamlines the intake, triage and placement of pro bono opportunities. We also launched our internal volunteering platform KindLink. Available in ten of our countries, KindLink makes it easier for all our colleagues to get involved in community investment activities and organise their own. We plan to roll out KindLink to the rest of our countries later in the year.
Culture, flexible working and benefits
To keep our colleagues motivated and engaged, we're committed to rewarding them fairly for their work, while providing an inclusive culture that meets their personal and professional needs.
Following the pandemic, and in response to feedback from colleagues, we've updated our international approach to flexible working. We know that the need and desire to spend time working remotely varies greatly according to individual circumstances. We also know that many of our people highly value the collegiate environment of the office, and we believe that some personal interaction with colleagues is vital, especially for younger lawyers. Therefore, the refreshed approach is based on trusting colleagues to find the balance between office and remote working that suits them best, with the understanding that at least 50% of working time is spent in the office.
To facilitate hybrid working, we're evolving our IT systems to ensure our colleagues can work and collaborate effectively at all times, whether they're at home or in the office (see more on this later in this chapter).
2,045 DLA Piper lawyers contributed 197,512 pro bono hours in 2021.
650+ DLA Piper colleagues served as mentors to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We want to ensure our people are rewarded fairly and that their achievements are recognised. As well as providing more regular feedback and recognition across the firm, we also plan to refresh our benefit offering over the next year, aligning enhancements to our health and wellbeing and sustainability commitments.
For more about our social impact, our pro bono work and outreach initiatives see section 4.0 Our society.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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27% of women; and
98% of men who took parental leave in 2021/22 returned to work.
"M y team has been very supportive"
Personal perspectives: Parental leave
CATRIONA MARTIN, PRO BONO DIRECTOR ASIA PACIFIC
Q. You recently took some time off to start a family. What financial support did you receive from DLA Piper during this time, and how do you feel it compared with packages available elsewhere?
"After having my first child, I took 12 months' leave. DLA Piper paid me 18 weeks parental leave at my full-time salary. Although this is consistent with most Australian corporates, some law and accounting firms in Australia are now offering 26 weeks paid parental leave entitlements. In the future I would like to see DLA Piper Australia offer a similar financial benefit to support employees to take longer periods of parental leave.
"In addition to my paid parental leave entitlements, the firm also paid superannuation during the period of my unpaid parental leave. DLA Piper was one of the first Australian law firms to implement this policy and it makes a big difference in reducing the gap in retirement savings for women who have had children something I really appreciate."
Q. What other parental leave support did you receive aside from financial benefits?
"The firm provided executive coaching in the lead-up to my parental leave. The coach helped me develop a strategy to manage key stakeholder relationships during my absence and made a plan for keeping in touch with my supervisor.
"The coaching continued when I returned to work, giving me strategies to help me adjust to the transition. When I returned I was initially working three days a week, but I soon realised I wanted to return to full-time work. My supervisor promptly facilitated my request, and I increased my hours back to full time."
Q. What do you find are some of the biggest challenges in balancing work and family life now you're a parent?
"Implementing a realistic, flexible working arrangement is a real challenge. Before having a baby I could easily make myself available for calls outside business hours and work on the weekend, but now those windows are no longer convenient. Fortunately, my team has been very supportive, and they've accommodated my new work hours where I start at 8am and finish at 4.30pm. Now I only log on after 7pm if I need to attend calls and, if I do, I only schedule calls on one or two nights during the week.
"Overall, I have felt very supported and accommodated by the firm, both in the lead-up to my parental leave and transitioning back. I am now pregnant with my second child, and I feel reassured knowing this support is available to me again."
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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Career mobility
We want to ensure that progression within our firm is fair, and that belonging to an underrepresented group is no obstacle to career success. As part of our diversity and inclusion strategy, we've set targets to ensure that more of our partners come from diverse backgrounds. Through our apprenticeships, we're also ensuring that career opportunities in the legal profession are not limited to those who have benefited from higher education (see below).
We want all our colleagues to enjoy rewarding and secure careers, whether or not they decide to stay at DLA Piper. While our people are with us, we aim to help them develop transferable skills that will remain relevant as our industry evolves.
Updating our tools and technologies
IT has always played a key role in supporting our colleagues' development, and the recent shift to hybrid working has made it even more critical. We're committed to leading by example, helping colleagues grow, connect and do their best work through optimised services and new ways of working.
Our IT strategy is based on four principles:
Security: ensuring our people can work securely across multiple devices.
Performance: ensuring our connections and network work efficiently and seamlessly, allowing our colleagues to work as quickly and productively as possible.
Modernisation: continually evolving and introducing the latest technologies and tools within our organisation.
Digitalisation: moving to a cloud-first system, where our services and data are stored and managed externally.
Giving everyone a fair start
A person's start in life should not determine the type of job they go into and the success they have in their career. Through our social mobility student recruitment initiatives, we seek to broaden access to the law profession and ensure that each student or graduate joining us has an equal opportunity to succeed, no matter their background.
Just a few of our social mobility recruitment initiatives:
We're a founding sponsor of the 93% Club, the UK's largest social mobility network for students, and named this way because 93% of people go to state schools in the UK. We provide financial sponsorship to seven university-specific 93% Club societies.
We partner with upReach, a social mobility charity, to deliver mentoring, insight days and career academy events.
For all Early Careers hiring we use Rare's contextualised recruitment software, which identifies applicants with the greatest potential by putting their achievements in context. We also use a strengths-based assessment and selection methodology to ensure we assess for future potential, not past performance.
In 2019, we were the first international law firm to remove minimum academic entry requirements, enabling us to broaden access.
We ensure there are no financial barriers to access for any of our university events or programmes, and pay for all travel, accommodation and catering costs.
We believe we're the only law firm to offer bespoke employability skills training for students who are unsuccessful in their applications to the firm.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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Employee networks
Our employee networks play a key role in engaging our people with diversity and inclusion issues. Read more in section 2.1 Diversity and inclusion.
Launched in early 2021, eMission 2030 is our internal international campaign to engage our colleagues in helping us meet our Science-based Carbon Reduction Target. More than 170 eMission 2030 Champions work across our offices to raise colleagues' awareness of the target and how they can help the firm reach it.
We also have an international network of Community Leads and Ambassadors, who drive and champion local office engagement in community volunteering and fundraising.
Tracking our effectiveness
We regularly carry out surveys to gain feedback about our colleagues' experiences of work, and their feelings about DLA Piper as an employer.
We ran a major employee engagement survey in October 2021, and a follow-up survey in May 2022. In October we found that, while our overall Engagement Index has increased by 6% points since 2019, it has dropped slightly since July 2021, possibly due to the challenges of the pandemic.
In other areas, particularly around flexible working, we saw marked improvements in how our people feel about our policies. For example, in October 2021 only 39% of our people felt that the firm offered enough flexibility to achieve the right balance between office and remote working. In our May 2022 survey, following the introduction of our WorkSmart Flex policy, that number rose to 70%.
We'll continue to use the insights we gain from our surveys to ensure we're providing the right resources and opportunities for our people.
For more about our employee surveys and how we conduct them, see section 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing.
"New talent wants to be associated with a firm that nurtures and respects its people, that doesn't discriminate, that has good policies, and that works with providers with green policies."
Internal stakeholder
"D LA Piper is a people business and we need to make sure that we attract and retain the right people for our culture and business."
Internal stakeholder
"D LA Piper needs to attract a diverse talent pool and ensure it creates equal opportunities for all. Having a strong ESG offering will make the firm an attractive employer, especially for younger lawyers."
External stakeholder
"Y ounger lawyers really care about ESG. They're sensitive to how a firm is perceived, and what policies it has in place reflecting what the firm itself finds important."
External stakeholder
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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> 3.0 Our Clients
3.0 Our Clients
Our client work represents our biggest impact on the world and our biggest opportunity to make a positive difference. Recently we've taken steps to better understand the impact of our advice, as well as evolving our approach to working with clients to ensure we're contributing to a sustainable future.
22% of our clients are in Financial Services
11% of our clients are in Consumer Goods, Food and Retail
11% of our clients are in Industrials
Over 13,000 clients in 2021/22
Read on: 3.1 Client advice on ESG
14% of our clients are in Technology
12% of our clients are in Real Estate
From top right and counter clock-wise: Ahmad Aji Sukma, Associate, Litigation and Regulatory, Marie Kingston, Pro Bono Counsel, Responsible Business and Mariam Sheikh, Senior ESG Analyst, Responsible Business.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
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> 3.1 Client advice on ESG
3.1 Client advice on ESG
Our impacts
From governments to multinational enterprises and emerging technology companies, DLA Piper's client base includes some of the world's largest and most influential organisations. Collectively, the activities of our clients have a major societal and environmental impact. For this reason, client advice on ESG matters, and equally, ensuring the environmental and social imperatives are considered as part of all our advice, is a strategic business driver for DLA Piper. These are our biggest opportunities to positively affect the social and environmental transition.
Understanding the impact of our advice, and for climate this is termed `advised emissions,' both its extent and how we take account of it and integrate it into our decision-making, is a work in progress. This is the case for DLA Piper and for the wider legal sector. Stated throughout this report is our belief that the climate crisis means every business must act and ensure its business model and strategy is contributing to, not working against, a 1.5 degree world. For a global law firm this means equipping our lawyers to build climate and wider ESG considerations into our advice. This is an important governance issue, because how we understand and manage the ESG impact of our advice is inseparable from our values.
Our materiality assessment ranked client advice on environment as number 4 out of 15 material issues, identifying it as one of our most important strategic issues to address. The impact of our advice was also raised by stakeholders as part of our Net Zero transition (rated # 1) and ESG risks and governance (rated # 3).
Our commitments
DLA Piper is committed to making business better by helping clients transition to, and thrive in, a more sustainable future. This means playing our part in helping businesses realise the added value that comes with the social and environmental transformation that is underway, and supporting them as they shift to new strategies and even business models, which add planetary and societal benefits as well as commercial gain.
As part of our ESG offering, we work with clients on their overall sustainability vision and help them resolve ESG related challenges in a way that provides long-term benefits for all. We aim to approach these challenges holistically, looking at them in context, and pushing back on assumptions, to ensure our guidance is meaningful and effective (see the next page for more on our approach to working with clients, and how this is evolving).
For our advice to be credible, it must also be authentic. In other words, we must apply the ESG advice we offer to clients in our own firm and be seen to be doing so. Led by our CEO Simon Levine, sustainability has been made a strategic priority across our business.
We recognise that no global business is yet genuinely operating within planetary boundaries. Therefore an approach that amounts to simply managing ESG risk will fail to achieve the level of change that is needed. A transformation of business models and business operations and the markets and systems that value them is occurring which means DLA Piper's approach as we support our clients must rapidly adapt.
The majority of our advice is not part of our technical ESG offering, but for matters that may not be presented explicitly as ESG-related we're striving to ensure we systematically consider environmental and social implications, and that we do this as part of all advice. Our clients increasingly expect this level of integration, and as a result, our ESG footprint for advisory services is many times larger than the technical ESG support we provide.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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"A cross all sectors sustainability has entered the mainstream of commercial considerations and our lawyers are constantly responding to sustainability-related queries. Going forward, we will see an increase in regulations as regulators and authorities continue to make a concerted effort to regulate this area. With this in mind, all companies, across all sectors, should integrate sustainability considerations into their business activity, in the same way DLA Piper is actively doing so."
Natasha Luther-Jones, Global Co-Chair, Energy & Natural Resources and International Head, Sustainability & ESG
GOVERNANCE
Overall responsibility for coordinating DLA Piper's Sustainability and ESG actions is held by Jean-Pierre Douglas-Henry, our Sustainability and Resilience Managing Director. Jean-Pierre sits on the Executive.
Our ESG client offer is led by Natasha Luther-Jones, our International Head of Sustainability and ESG. Natasha chairs our Sustainability and ESG Steering Committee, which is responsible for supporting the Sustainability and ESG strategy and ensuring it is implemented across locations, groups and sectors.
All our lawyers are trained in Sustainability and ESG opportunities and challenges so they can apply this knowledge to their existing sector expertise. This approach is supported by our network of Sustainability and ESG Sector Champions: lawyers from each of our sector groups charged with leading the development of our Sustainability and ESG service offer for their sector.
Within each sector we apply our eight-pillar approach to ESG services (see to the right). Each of these pillars has a lead who is deeply embedded in the area of focus. The leads work alongside a core team of lawyers, who are supported by a wider global team of lawyers.
In addition, we have a wider network called the Sustainability and ESG Special Interest Group, which is open to all colleagues. The network allows colleagues to share knowledge, experience and credentials across jurisdictions and collaborate on ESG client service development and training.
Finally, we have Sustainability and ESG Trainee Champions across each of our UK offices. They take the lead in supporting our Steering Committee and Sector Champions in developing and delivering client offerings and operate as a balance to the perspectives of the Steering Committee. As our UK trainees move around the business during their training contracts, the Trainee Champions act as ambassadors for ESG across different departments, gaining a cross-group perspective on how these issues can be addressed in a holistic manner.
Eight-pillared approach
We take a sector-based approach to our ESG client advisory services. Within each sector, our ESG services are grouped into eight pillars, each covering specific areas where we offer support.
Corporate purpose Getting started ESG strategy Brand & reputation Responsible business
Decarbonisation & biodiversity Energy transition & green power Carbon SBTs, scope 3 and Net Zero Biodiversity and nature based solutions
Treating people fairly Diversity, inclusion & mobility Business & human rights Labours relations & modern slavery
Data & technology Data governance Cyber Green technology
Supply chain integrity Circular economy Competition & collaboration Sustainable procurement Supply chain due dilligence & verification
Sustainable investments & insurance Green finance Sustainable funds Sustainable real estate Insurance
Governance & reporting Legislative & policy engagement ESG regulation Board & stakeholder governance
ESG disputes & investigations Greenwashing, investigations & claims Green disputes ESG & group liability issues
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4.0 Our Society
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Challenging assumptions
We're also taking a more holistic approach to our advice which includes stress-testing clients' assumptions, and viewing individual issues in the light of their overall sustainability journey. By doing so, we can understand how these issues may be linked to other ESG challenges and opportunities.
A more purposeful approach to choosing clients and projects
Aside from the advice we provide, the clients we work with and the projects we undertake also have major sustainability impacts. Therefore, as we evolve our approach, we're exploring how to better integrate ESG into our new client and matter intake process. This doesn't mean excluding certain sectors entirely; indeed, it's important we continue to support clients in high-impact sectors in greatest need of transition.
A firmwide approach
Another challenge is ensuring our approach to client work is adopted across our business. As a large firm operating in many parts of the world, we want to ensure that this approach is applied consistently by all our lawyers, while taking into account local context and supported by tailored learning and development.
"T here's no substitute in today's legal practice for a deep understanding of a client's business, and our clients' businesses increasingly centre on sustainability, environmental risk, and social impact. Clients embarking on this sustainability journey want outside counsel who consciously contribute to that effort without detracting or distracting from it. Internalizing that demand will be a defining feature of law firms that thrive in tomorrow's economy."
Jesse Medlong, Associate in San Francisco
Actions we are taking
Working with clients: Evolving our approach
To maximise the positive impact our advice can have on society and the environment, we need to consider the way we work with clients. With that in mind, we've been evolving our approach to ESG advice and client intake to ensure our work is effective in supporting our clients' transition, and that it makes a real contribution to sustainability.
Measuring the impact of our advice
Part of this is about understanding our clients' needs better. This includes carrying out assessments and drawing on a wide range of externally available data to develop a clear picture of what stage clients have reached in their sustainability journeys, and the part our advice plays in that transition. It's then about making this data available to all our partners and equipping them to use it constructively, so they can apply it in their decisions.
As a first step, we're working to gain more data around the impact of our advice as it relates to carbon emissions and climate change. We're working with our Financial Services clients to learn from the process they went through in measuring the carbon impact of financed emissions.
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Transforming our clients' operations
In 2022 we worked on several projects that transformed our clients' operations and made a significant contribution towards sustainability. Here are a few examples.
Green energy
We advised the chemical multinational BASF on its largest ESG-driven procurement of renewable energy. This included investing in the world's largest offshore wind park off the Dutch coast.
"I love this ongoing terrific partnership between BASF in-house and DLA Piper colleagues working together to meet our renewable commitment."
Matthew Lepore, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer / President, Legal, Compliance and Insurance, BASF SE
Low carbon fashion
We advised Swedish fashion retailer H&M Group on two significant partnerships with global solar energy companies. These long-term partnerships will help accelerate the decarbonisation of the global fashion industry.
Ethical investments
We advised an AI-focused venture capital fund on their ethical AI policy to underwrite their investments, so they can invest in startups meaningfully and ethically.
Sustainable supply chains
We supported an energy sector participant to develop their Supply Chain and Business Partner Code of Conduct. The code will help the company manage their indirect impacts by putting in place the basics for managing sustainability issues within their extended supply chain.
Climate resilience
We advised open-source digital platform Etherisc on offering affordable and accessible crop insurance to smallholder farmers in Africa, to increase farmers' resilience to climate change.
"ESG issues are increasingly becoming boardroom issues for our clients. We have been advising on health and safety matters, reviewing anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies and providing diversity and inclusion training for more and more of our clients. Having the opportunity to work on these matters through the DLA Piper platform means that we can make a difference by helping clients further their ESG goals."
Johnny Choi, Foreign Legal Consultant, Employment, Hong Kong
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Social mobility initiatives
In June 2022 we hosted our Business Meets Politics Dinner on Social Mobility, attended by our clients Pfizer, KFC, Mission Beyond, GE Renewables, Aldermore Bank, HSBC, EasyJet, and Walt Disney.
We also work with Sodexo, Lloyd's Banking Group and others on the delivery of Head Start, our outreach programme for talented young people who face social and economic barriers to entering the legal profession. See section 4.1 Social impact.
Investing in developing countries
We partner with clients on our Global Scholarships Programme, which supports outstanding law students in less developed countries. Our clients Visa, HSBC, and Unilever have contributed to the programme by providing mentors and hosting our Fellows around the world.
Thought leadership initiatives
In 2022 we launched the Future of Boards research project, in partnership with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). Involving many of our clients and stakeholders, the two-year global research project will explore what sustainability means for the current and future role, structure, membership, and operations of the board. This is a unique project in scope which will generate practical insights and guidance for businesses as they adapt to the shifts in governance and leadership necessary to align their success with sustainability.
Diversity and inclusion initiatives
Our clients play an important role in our diversity and inclusion campaigns for example, by taking part in our employee network webinars and other events to talk about diversity issues. During this year's LGBT+ History Month, our IRIS and LAW employee networks hosted a panel discussion that included a representative from D&I networks of NatWest. We also held a code-switching discussion with PGIM for World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.
Being a credible sustainability partner
Our relationship with our clients brings sustainability benefits to both parties. Just as we advise our clients on ESG issues and help them create sustainable value through our ESG services, we also partner with them to help us manage our own sustainability impacts, sometimes in collaboration with other external stakeholders.
Partnership examples include the following:
Pro bono work
We've recently delivered Know Your Rights sessions in the UK and Europe alongside our clients AON, FMO, Heineken, Lyondellbasell, NatWest, Oracle, Organon, and Uber, among others.
American International Group (AIG) is working with us in the Kind clinic, helping migrant children to regularise their British citizenship.
In collaboration with GE and other clients, we prepared 20 fact sheets to assist displaced people fleeing the war in Ukraine. The factsheets inform Ukrainians of their rights in 20 countries in Europe, Japan and the US.
Moving the dial in the legal sector
Achieving industry-wide change requires the legal profession to work together. We are committed to collaborating and sharing knowledge with other law firms as part of industry-wide initiatives to improve sustainability across the legal sector and maximise the positive impact of legal advice.
Net Zero Lawyers Alliance (NZLA): DLA Piper is a founding member of the recently established NZLA, of which JP Douglas-Henry, DLA Piper's Managing Director for Sustainability and Resilience, sits on the steering committee. NZLA is committed to climate action, promoting sustainability reporting and sharing best practice in the legal sector.
Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL): DLA Piper is a founding member of GAIL, a community of legal leaders who are using the practice of law to have a positive impact on people and the planet, and to accelerate the just transition.
Legal Sustainability Alliance (LSA): As a founding member of the Legal Sustainability Alliance in the UK, we work to promote sustainability reporting and sharing of best practice in the legal sector. We also support this model in Australia, through the Australian Legal Sector Alliance.
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RECOGNITION
DLA Piper was one of only ten international firms ranked in the Legal 500 EMEA Green Guide launched in April 2022.
DLA Piper was recognised as a Global Energy Transition Innovator in Green Finance, Wind Sector Finance Advisory Expertise, in Reuters' Top 100 Innovators Report.
DLA Piper was ranked as the #1 renewable energy legal advisor for year 2021. The ranking is compiled by inspiratia, a provider of real-time energy industry analysis and news.
For the second consecutive year, DLA Piper received the Global Law Firm of the Year award, as well as winning for the best ESG Initiative for our recent signing of our corporate PPA as off-takers, a first in the legal industry. We were also highly commended for our regional practice in Africa.
"T hai companies have been paying a lot of attention to ESG given the needs of their investors and lenders. They know that taking the ESG journey seriously is not just a nice thing to do but gives them access to more investors and cheaper borrowing."
Waranon (Warren) Vanichprapa, Co-Country Managing Partner, Bangkok
"I just wanted to say a huge thank you for DLA Piper's time and really useful insights on anti-discrimination and anti-harassment issues in the training they delivered to our company. I know the HR team were very grateful and appreciated this. It provides valuable reinforcement and learning to continuously improve our awareness and knowledge in handling these types of issues in the workplace."
DLA Piper client
What's next
Only by better understanding where our clients are on their sustainability journey, can we accurately assess how our advice impacts their social and environmental transition. Over the next year we will further integrate ESG into our client intake and use a data-driven approach to enhance our understanding of our advised emissions.
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4.0 Our Society
As one of the largest multinational law firms, we have a significant impact on society. By gaining a deeper understanding of our impact, we can contribute to reducing inequality and building a fairer world.
197,512 pro bono hours
Read on: 4.1 Social impact 4.2 Social justice and capacity building
From left to right: Awmaima Amrayaf, Pro Bono Legal Officer, Responsible Business and Olivia Clark, Senior Associate, Responsible Business
GBP235,000 raised and donated for social causes in 2021/22
195 young people empowered from underrepresented* backgrounds through our programmes
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500+ young people are supported by the firm's mentoring schemes
* Underrepresented groups are defined as Female, LGBT+, minority ethnic groups, disability, and those from lower socioeconomic background.
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4.1 Social impact
Law firms are in a unique position to drive positive societal change. To maximise our impact, we're taking lessons from areas where we know we're making a difference in particular our community work with charities and NGOs and applying them throughout our business.
650+ DLA Piper colleagues are volunteering as mentors to young people.
137 students in 5 countries are currently supported by our Head Start programme.
58 Fellows across 18 countries are currently supported by our Global Scholarships Programme.
USD3.7m pledged in pro bono support to UNHCR.
From left to right: Suzi Delahunty, Community Programmes Supervisor, Responsible Business, Mthusi Morebodi, Global Scholarships Programme Manager, Responsible Business and Clementine Johnson, Head of Social Impact, Responsible Business.
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Our impacts
We have an impact on society in many ways, from the advice we give to commercial and pro bono clients, to how we manage our supply chain, toour community partnerships and our leadership and advocacy on key social issues.
Reducing inequality and enhancing the practice and rule of law is an important precursor to our mission of making business better. Taking meaningful action to address social challenges is also important to our clients, who expect us to live up to high standards of social responsibility. Finally, it's part of what makes people proud to work for us, helping us continue to attract and retain the best talent.
DLA Piper has a long history of partnering with charities, education partners, think tanks and NGOs, and currently this is the area where we're best able to measure and quantify our impact.
However, understanding how other parts of our business impact society is becoming critically important. We want to ensure we are having a net positive social effect as a firm, across all our operations and through our commercial advice. It's also vital because social and environmental responsibility go hand in hand. A just transition to a low carbon world depends on having solid social foundations in place.
To begin the process of measuring our social footprint accurately, we're taking lessons from the area where we have the most knowledge about our impact our community partnership programmes and applying them in other areas of our business such as stakeholder engagement.
Our commitments
DLA Piper exists in a vibrant, interdependent global ecosystem of actors (see graphic on next page) including our people, our clients and our communities who affect and are affected by social issues in many ways. These social issues can have an impact on the long-term success of our clients and our firm. We address these issues by investing our resources in the areas where our advice can have the biggest impact over the long term. We want to play our part in ensuring our world is fair, stable and sustainable.
Our social impact agenda includes bringing important stakeholders together, raising awareness and influencing the agenda, as well as publishing research and hosting events so that colleagues, peers, clients, regulators and governments can make better choices. We aim to collaborate widely and serve as a hub for innovation and practical advice. One example of this is how we leverage the skills and resources from across the firm to address issues and break down barriers to opportunity in the legal sector.
Actions we're taking
Rising rates of inequality is a major global challenge. It's one of the main factors behind a range of social problems, from political instability to disparities in health and education and economic fragility. Inequality and economic exclusion also have a negative impact for our business and for our clients which means there is a strong business case to act, as well as a moral obligation.
By understanding the multiple ways our firm can tackle inequality and collaborating widely, we address the root cause of the issue and drive sustainable change.
We promote fair futures across our business, through:
Outreach - community volunteering and pro bono projects
Recruitment - targeted and thoughtful approach to recruitment, working with universities and utilising contextualized recruitment systems
Inclusion - using data to target interventions where they're most needed
Reporting / transparency - publishing information on current workforce, reflections and goals
Peak body and sector engagement - working across the sector as part of PRIME and supporting the Social Mobility Commission and the Solicitors Regulation Authority
Advocacy - hosting events to raise awareness about challenges and opportunities
Client advice and partnering - collaborating with clients and supporting our lawyers to understand the impact of their advice on access and opportunity in our communities
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Our social impact
At DLA Piper, social impact is characterised by the positive change we can have by holistically addressing pressing social issues. This can be a local or global effort to tackle climate change, racial inequity, social mobility, poverty, homelessness, or any other problem our community is facing.
We have an impact on our people, our clients and our communities, though in different capacities.
The legal sector is increasingly being asked to choose to operate through specific sets of goals and approaches to create social impact in the most significant way.
Expectations are rapidly evolving and unpacking our current areas of social impact is the first step in improving.
Suppli
Vision
DLA Piper chooses to act in a way that makes the world fairer, more stable and more sustainable.
ments
Re
Peers gulators
ers Govern
DLA Piper exists in a vibrant, interdependent global ecosystem of actors who affect and are affected by social issues in many ways.
We address these issues by investing our resources in the areas where our advice can have the biggest impact over the long term.
We learn from our stakeholders, they learn from us, and we grow together.
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Supporting sustainable development
We want to support local economies and communities wherever we operate. DLA Piper has offices in many developing countries, including operations in 20 African countries (part of a Swiss Verein whose members are comprised of independent law firms in Africa working with DLA Piper). In these geographies we're committed to supporting local businesses and economic growth. We do this by:
working with governments to identify and remove barriers to foreign direct investment;
introducing our clients to opportunities for inbound investment;
creating new local jobs; and
supporting skills transfer and capacity building.
To understand what we could be doing better, we launched a research project in 2022 examining the socioeconomic impact of DLA Piper in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. Specifically, the project will look at how DLA Piper delivers value for society through partnerships with established law firms.
Access to education and opportunity
Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. To reduce social inequality, we're focused on supporting talented young people from underrepresented groups in the communities where we operate, giving them access to opportunities in the legal sector.
Breaking down social barriers through Head Start
Run in the UK, Kenya, China, New Zealand and Australia, our Head Start programmes support talented young people who face social, economic or cultural barriers to entering and succeeding in the legal profession.
Head Start students are recruited using evidence-based social equality criteria, and the programme works with them to increase confidence, build networks and gain knowledge through a mixture of internships, skills training and mentoring. Head Start can last from 18 months to five years, depending on the location. While Head Start is not a pipeline programme, four Head Start Scholars have been recruited into DLA Piper as graduates, apprentices or trainees since 2019.
Head Start around the world
UK runs for three years and currently supports 113 students from six cities. Run in partnership with the Sutton Trust.
Australia supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students over two years. The programme is run in partnership with CareerTrackers, and is part of our Reconciliation Action Plan.
China supports law students for four years. Students come from remote and rural parts of China and there are currently eight students on the programme.
Kenya the five-year programme is currently supporting eight students and is run in partnership with Tanari Trust.
New Zealand available to Head Start scholars for up to five years, starting in year 12. Run in partnership with Prince's Trust New Zealand and supported four students in 2021/22.
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Advancing socioeconomic diversity in the legal profession
People from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds face unique challenges in accessing and succeeding in the legal profession. DLA Piper plays a leading role in advancing social mobility and improving access and opportunity for these groups, working in partnership with peers, clients, regulators, education partners, charities and schools. Read more about our activities in our Regional Highlights report.
Global Scholarships Programme
Launched in 2017, our Global Scholarships Programme nurtures future lawyers and builds legal capacity in developing countries. Delivered in partnership with the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law and the Sad Business School, the programme aims to contribute to embedding the rule of law in underserved regions.
Each year, the firm supports students of the programme (known as DLA Piper Fellows) based throughout Africa, South and West Asia, the South Pacific and Latin America. Over their bespoke two-year scholarship, Fellows have their full tuition paid and receive mentoring and training to develop their skills, confidence and networks. The programme currently supports 58 Fellows from 18 countries.
Over the past year and a half, we've been focused on adapting the programme to address the challenges of the pandemic. To support Fellows who were unable to attend university in person, we put our core modules online, delivering 1,000 hours of online training. To enhance the mentoring experience, we also connected Fellows with mentors at local law firms. We extended the programme by an additional year to ensure that cohort 2
Fellows could complete the course. At the same time, we continued to provide Fellows with mental and financial support.
February 2022 saw the first in-person Leadership Course since the pandemic, which 19 Fellows from around the world attended. The course marks a new chapter for the programme as we look to a future beyond the pandemic.
Leadership course feedback
"The course challenged many of my previous misconceptions about leadership. I now have a better understanding of my personal leadership method, and my own strengths and weaknesses."
GSP Fellow reflecting on the Leadership Course
"It was refreshing and inspiring to hear the client panel sharing their experiences and hopes for us as young leaders and lawyers."
GSP Fellow reflecting on the Leadership Course
"The [GSP Programme] showed me why it's important to be critical and surgical as a lawyer in each and every thing I do, as well as how lawyers can contribute to good governance and the rule of law around the world."
Nwe Mon Mon Oo, GSP Fellow
"The [GSP Programme] has helped me both professionally and personally. It's helped me achieve my dream of becoming a lawyer in my country. It's also helped me feel more confident and believe in myself."
Oscar Alfredo Fernandez, GSP Fellow
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"T hings became very dangerous for young female lawyers in Kabul."
Personal perspectives: Global Scholarships Programme
Programme participant
"I was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and I always dreamed of becoming a lawyer. I worked hard at school to get into university to study law, where I received good grades and was recognised for my leadership potential. In 2019 I applied to DLA Piper's Global Scholarships Programme and was awarded a place on the programme alongside 27 law students from all over the world.
"This experience inspired me to search for the leader within me, and also helped me to use my skills to support community members, either through education or general life skills.
"In 2020, I started my master's in law and also worked in governmental and nongovernmental organisations. I was focused on enhancing capacity and knowledge of women in prison, which included meeting them and supporting them through processes, and educating them about their rights. I even attended court a couple of times to represent them.
"After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, things became very dangerous for young female lawyers in Kabul. Because I was part of the DLA Piper Global Scholarship family, the firm kindly helped me get out of Kabul and also offered me a job. This has been a challenging experience, but I am passionate about pursuing law and helping my family and my community one day."
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Community engagement
Providing our people with opportunities to volunteer to support social causes is an important part of our learning and development strategy.
All our partners and staff are encouraged to take two days off work each year to engage in community activities. Those who would like to contribute more time can do so, with the agreement of their supervisor. We also match up to GBP200 (or local currency equivalent) per year of our partner and colleagues' donations to eligible charities and causes. Many of our offices run a local committee that nominates a Charity of the Year, voted for by our people.
In 2022 we rolled out an internal community engagement platform, allowing us to more efficiently manage our fundraising and volunteering activities, and empower colleagues to get involved in community activities.
Emergency relief
We contribute to emergency relief efforts, both through legal assistance and through fundraising.
Legal aid plays a vital role in emergency relief. Recently, our lawyers have been directly involved in crisis relief efforts in both Afghanistan and Ukraine (you can read more about this in section 4.2 Social justice and capacity building.
Some of our own colleagues and their families were personally affected by these conflicts. To help them, we set up an Employee Emergency Support Fund, which gives quick access to emergency grants and interest-free loans for those who need them.
In 2021/22, our international fundraising focused on COVID-19, Ukraine and Afghanistan.
GBP156,000 donated by the firm to UNICEF and UNHCR.
GBP33,000 raised by our employees for Ukraine.
What's next
Taking our social mobility strategy beyond the UK
We recognise that socioeconomic background is linked to other diversity issues. In 2023, we will focus on developing our international socioeconomic diversity strategy to reflect this.
As part of this we are encouraging leaders in all our regions to reflect on the socioeconomic makeup of their offices and social barriers to entry and progression and take tangible steps to address this. We also plan to work more actively with suppliers on mutually beneficial social mobility activities.
Evolving how we measure our impact
Over the last several years we have invested in tools to enable a more consistent approach to data management, evaluation and impact reporting of our pro bono and community programmes. We've also been developing the capacity of our teams to measure our impact more effectively. We're continuing on this journey and are working with IG Advisors and Impact Mapper to ensure we are adopting a best-in-class approach for evaluating quantitative and qualitative data.
We also submitted our social impact data into the B4SI benchmark for the first time this year, which has helped us identify more opportunities for improvement.
We'll also reflect on what we will have learned from our research into our social impact in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, and apply these learning to the firm's other markets.
Expanding our understanding of social impact beyond community investment
We'll continue to develop our capacity to understand the societal impact we are having through all parts of our business operations such as through how we treat our people, how we upskill them, how we work with our clients, and how we work with our suppliers. Our aim is to ensure that the net impact of all our activities is positive.
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4.2 Social justice and capacity building
Our impacts
Around the world, our lawyers give free (pro bono) legal advice to protect the rights of vulnerable people, support climate justice and conservation, and to support equality and good governance. We delivered nearly 200,000 hours of pro bono legal advice in 2021, making us one of the world's largest providers of pro bono legal services.
As a law firm, we make an impact on the world in many ways, but our pro bono work is one of the most powerful tools we have to drive positive social change. It's important that our lawyers apply their professional skills beyond their work with commercial clients and use them to help improve society.
We regard pro bono work as a vital part of our lawyers' professional development. By working pro bono, our lawyers are exposed to important societal issues, and gain new skills and perspectives. This in turn improves their work with commercial clients.
Many of our non-legal business service professionals also welcome the opportunity to apply their professional skills to causes they care about. We believe this is a valuable way to improve skills and broaden experience, and we're working to develop a high-quality skilled volunteering programme for our non-legal professionals.
Our pro bono clients
We work with five types of pro bono clients:
individuals who cannot afford a lawyer or access legal aid non-governmental organisations such as associations, charities
and foundations UN agencies social entrepreneurs least developed, or (in some cases) developing countries
Support for individuals: For individuals, much of our pro bono support goes to people who have been forcibly displaced by violent conflicts and natural disasters. Many of these people are disenfranchised and excluded from the mainstream and are often unable even to provide the documents required to apply for legal aid. We believe that, as legal professionals, we have a moral obligation to ensure displaced people have the fullest possible access to justice and can take advantage of the legal protections afforded to them by law. We achieve this by establishing legal clinics, conducting impact litigation and supporting nonprofits that work with displaced people.
Support for NGOs: We provide advice on legal matters that NGOs face in the day-to-day running of their organisations, such as drafting and revising commercial contracts, and intellectual property issues. For key NGO clients we provide pro bono secondments to support their legal needs, helping them avoid legal costs and focus their funds on their key objectives. Our work also includes training NGO staff on legal matters and preparing comparative legal research and best practice guidance.
Support for UN agencies and other intergovernmental organisations: We provide pro bono support to UN Agencies, such as UNHCR, UNAIDS, UNOPS, UNWFP, UNFPA, UNICEF, IOM, The Global Fund, and the World Bank among others. Our work for the UN includes legal support for the in-house legal teams and thematic support for the programme teams.
Support for social enterprises: By combining private enterprise with civic engagement, social enterprises offer an innovative way to provide community services. We support these organisations with pro bono legal advice, helping them develop and grow.
Support for least developed countries: Through New Perimeter, our global pro bono initiative, we provide pro bono legal assistance in under-served regions around the world to support access to justice, women's advancement, social and economic development and sound legal institutions.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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BUILDING A BETTER WORLD THROUGH ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Too many people in the UK are unfairly prevented from realising their entrepreneurial potential. We're working with the charity Hatch Enterprise to give entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups, including women and people from ethnic minorities, the knowledge, confidence and skills they need to start a successful business.
In 2022, we launched an 18-24-month accelerator programme for businesses in the Hatch network. As part of the programme, DLA Piper is helping entrepreneurs define and reach their growth goals, providing each business with pro bono legal support tailored to their needs.
The initiative is part of our wider efforts to promote racial quality through holistic partnerships that leverage our colleagues' legal and non-legal skills.
60% of entrepreneurs on Hatch Enterprise's core programmes are from Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds.
ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR THE "MISSING MIDDLE"
In Australia, we've joined forces with Macquarie University Law School to launch Wallumatta Legal, a nonprofit law firm providing affordable, low-fee legal services. The firm helps to address an important societal issue by providing legal services to the "missing middle" those who are not eligible for legal aid or other free services but who cannot readily afford the fees charged by most commercial lawyers. Its focus is on family law, dealing with such issues as divorce, parenting and property matters, and Macquarie University Law School students attend Walumatta Legal to learn more about legal practice, family law and legal tech. The firm also employs senior law students as part-time paralegals, and collaborates on research projects with the university's academics and post-graduate students. Read more in the Australia section of our Regional Highlights Report.
"T his project is the one of the first of its kind
in Australia. It stands at the forefront of
academic innovation, providing our students
with work experience in legal services right
on campus."
Associate Professor Lise Barry, Interim Dean of Macquarie University Law School
197,512 pro bono hours* contributed in 2021.
12% of pro bono hours dedicated to clinics and individual work.
14% of pro bono hours dedicated to forcible displacement.
8% of pro bono hours dedicated to climate, environment and conservation.
10% of pro bono hours dedicated to good governance.
*Pro bono hours are given as global figures, including our US offices.
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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Our commitments
The vision for our pro bono practice is to "be a leading global pro bono practice by furthering access to justice, good governance and a more sustainable future."
Our pro bono work delivers on our promise to make business better by:
delivering a market-leading, high impact pro bono programme, leveraging the skills of our lawyers;
supporting the firm's ESG credentials, developing insights and helping to broaden skills and perspectives of our lawyers;
supporting the firm-wide sustainability strategy and positioning; and
supporting the sustainability and responsibility of our clients and partners.
Our pro bono culture
Pro bono work is central to fulfilling our purpose to make business better. As well as supporting our sustainability agenda, working pro bono is a valuable way for our lawyers to develop skills, broaden their experience and ultimately improve their commercial client work, particularly around ESG issues. Volunteering their professional skills to support good causes is also important for our business services professionals. Pro bono is an essential and integral part of our business culture.
We ensure that all our lawyers have an opportunity to work pro bono, and we expect and encourage them to do so. We have aspirational pro bono hourly targets for our lawyers. Depending on their region, we expect our lawyers to contribute between 25 and 65 hours minimum to pro bono projects annually.
We treat pro bono and billable clients in the same manner. Both are subject to our client engagement process and are provided with the same level of attention and advice. Our lawyers are provided with billable hour credit for pro bono work, ensuring that it receives appropriate recognition and time to develop new skills, to take on additional responsibility and to grow their networks and careers.
Pro bono incentives for our lawyers vary by region. For example, in some locations pro bono hours count towards bonuses, while in others they count toward hours targets.
Beyond our own firm, we're working to promote and stimulate the growth of pro bono legal work around the world. This includes holding events for law students, training other lawyers and working with bar associations to raise awareness.
We played a key role in setting up the UK Collaborative Plan for Pro Bono, which brings law firms together to work to improve access to justice through pro bono in the UK. We also founded the European Pro Bono Initiative, a group of pro bono managers working for international law firms in Continental Europe.
Supporting climate justice and conservation
Protecting the rights of vulnerable people
Supporting equality and good governance
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Actions we're taking
We want to focus our pro bono activities on the areas where we can make the biggest positive impact. For that reason, our pro bono strategy is based on three pillars protecting the rights of vulnerable people, good governance, and climate.
Although our strategy gives equal importance to each of these areas, this year's report focuses on our work with vulnerable people, especially our work with refugees. Forcible displacement is a key threat to a stable and equal society. With the world currently facing a wave of humanitarian crises caused by ongoing conflicts such as those in Ukraine and Afghanistan our focus on this issue has intensified over the past year.
Responding to humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and Ukraine
Ukraine and Afghanistan are facing major humanitarian crises. Millions of people displaced by conflicts in both countries are in desperate need of timely and accurate legal advice. DLA Piper has a long history of responding to global humanitarian challenges, and we are now focusing our efforts on addressing the crises in these countries. Our key initiatives include the following:
Country guides
We produced country information guides for people fleeing Ukraine, including information on access to healthcare, employment, housing and education. Covering more than 20 countries, the guides are accessible on PILnet's page and are translated into Ukrainian.
Legal advice portal
We launched an online portal giving displaced people secure access to legal advice. Developed by our pro bono lawyers, the service has become one the main portals through which Afghan and Ukrainian refugees can find information about safe pathways to the UK.
Ukraine Advice Project
We're using the portal to support the Ukraine Advice Project, an online service set up by a team of DLA Piper solicitors and barristers at the start of the invasion to provide reliable information to Ukrainians who wish to come to the UK. The service is the only initiative of its kind in the UK. The project will continue to adapt to support Ukrainians as they arrive in the UK and start to re-build their lives.
Know Your Rights
We expanded Know Your Rights, our legal education programme to refugees from Ukraine. The programme provides information on access to services, rights and opportunities for Ukrainians arriving in EU countries including Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.
Supporting Afghan refugees
After the fall of Kabul in August 2021, our team set up regional projects to assist thousands of Afghans seeking to relocate in the UK, Europe, the US and Australia. These included:
setting up a family reunion clinic for Afghan refugees. In the UK, there is no legal aid for refugee family reunion, which makes it very difficult for refugees to access legal help to bring their families to the UK. Forty lawyers from across our UK offices have been working in teams to assist Afghan refugees to draft family reunion applications.
organising sessions for female Afghan judges to advise on resettlement schemes across Europe, the UK and the US
setting up legal clinics in Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium and Germany for Afghan refugees with professional or family links in those countries. Our lawyers have been trained and supervised to work on family reunification and humanitarian visas.
+5,000 More than 5,000 Afghans and their families used our legal advice portal between August 2021 and February 2022
+4,000 Through the portal, we've advised more than 4,000 Ukrainians and their families in need of legal information about services in UK and across Europe.
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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Supporting asylum seekers in Greece
Around 30,000 displaced people seek asylum in Greece every year, making it one of the top refugee-receiving countries in Europe. Political and economic instability have contributed to weak human rights protections in the country, and legal advice for asylum seekers is highly inaccessible. Since 2019, DLA Piper lawyers have provided consistent support to asylum seekers and NGOs in Greece, supporting vulnerable individuals with immigration, relocation, and family reunification procedures.
Between 2019 and 2020, 25 of our lawyers were seconded to support around 600 asylum seekers at Samos Island, one of the most populated refugee camps in Greece. The needs on the ground have changed and we will resume our secondment program from September 2022, sending lawyers to Athens and Thessaloniki to assist asylum seekers and refugees.
In 2021, we entered into a partnership with the Greek Council for Refugees to support asylum seekers who had suffered human rights abuses. To date, we've supported 40 individuals and their families and brought their cases of human rights violation before the European Court of Human Rights.
We represent refugees in dire situations, including pregnant women, people with medical conditions, minors, and victims of illegal detention. We're currently focusing on the illegal pushback of migrants from Greek to Turkey.
Innovative finance for refugees
Capital market instruments used in the financial world have an important role to play in supporting refugees. Applied correctly, innovative financial tools can bring a range of benefits, including opening up more sources of funding and improving incentive structures for host countries. Examples of our recent work in this space include the following:
We provided pro bono advice to KOIS, an impact investment and finance advisory firm, in relation to the first tranche of a bond to support Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Over four years the first tranche will support 4,380 refugee and host population trainees and provide 3,400 business startup grants in Jordan.
In partnership with the Share Network, we're delivering training on impact finance for NGOs, policy makers, academic institutions, and businesses to explore how investment strategies can better support displaced peoples and communities in newly settled regions.
We're working with business and community stakeholders to create a favourable ecosystem for developing innovative finance models to address forced displacement.
Empowering refugees through knowledge
Since 2017, DLA Piper has run its signature project Know Your Rights (KYR) a legal empowerment program for asylum seekers and refugees across Europe and the UK. We run the project every year across ten jurisdictions in collaboration with local NGOs and our commercial clients.
KYR sessions cover a range of legal topics, advocacy and critical skills. We provide information to participants about employment, housing, contract law, women's rights and human rights. Sessions are designed by NGOs and our teams around the refugee communities' needs.
Alongside building knowledge and enhancing skills, the projects also provide mentoring support. Mentors give refugees professional and personal guidance to help them make sense of and overcome the challenges they face in their new countries. This is also an opportunity for learning and exchange. Mentors learn about the culture and history of their mentee's country of origin, as well as about the resilience, determination and personal courage of the individual before them.
Know Your Rights in numbers
Since 2017:
42 editions
involving 280 DLA Piper lawyers
and 33 commercial clients
benefitting 1,350 refugees.
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Understanding the challenges of COVID-19
The pandemic has affected female refugees' lives in an unprecedented way, creating challenges and obstacles that make the integration process more complex. Our lawyers have carried out research providing information, analysis, and personal accounts of these challenges. The research report includes the testimony of 15 female refugees and 10 experts from NGOs supporting refugees in France, Germany, Italy, and the UK.
For more on the report and its findings, visit our website.
Supporting Roma people in Italy
We have a pro bono legal clinic to support stateless people in Italy, in particular the many members of the Roma community who migrated to the country following the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. Through the clinic, our lawyers start civil legal proceedings on behalf of stateless people so they can be officially recognised as stateless or, further down the line, obtain Italian citizenship. The clinic was set up in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Italian Refugee Counsel.
Helping asylum seekers find decent housing
In the UK, we help vulnerable asylum seekers challenge inadequate accommodation provision. In 2021, working with Deighton Pierce Glynn, our lawyers helped 52 asylum seekers move out of overcrowded and unsanitary accommodation in the Napier Barracks in Kent, and into appropriate housing. The evidence from this project fed into the recent High Court decision finding that the decision to house asylum seekers at the barracks was unlawful.
Understanding the laws around internal displacement
An internally displaced person is someone who is forced to leave their home but remains within their country's borders, thereby falling outside the legal definitions of a refugee. In 2021 and 2022, our Asia Pacific lawyers worked with the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre on a research project focused on internal displacement policies in countries across the region. This project will produce the first regional analysis of policies, laws and regulatory frameworks linked with internal displacement in Asia and the Pacific. This project will be broadened in 2022 to encompass more countries and to help to advance the discussion globally.
UNHCR partnership
On 20 June 2022, we marked World Refugee Day by launching an innovative new partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Through the partnership, DLA Piper works closely with the organisation to co-develop innovative responses to the refugee crisis, enhance refugee inclusion, and advocate for impactful, systemic change. During the first three years of the partnership, we've pledged to provide pro bono support in excess of USD3.7 million to their programs around the world.
The formal partnership marks a new stage in our long-standing relationship with the UNHCR. Our firm has supported the organisation for more than ten years, providing more than 8,500 hours of pro bono advice since 2012.
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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THE REFUGEE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION FUND
We're one of the founding partners of UNHCR's Refugee Environmental Protection (REP) Fund, an innovative financing mechanism that invests in refugee and host community reforestation and clean cooking programs. The fund was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The fund will aim to plant tens of millions more trees and enable hundreds of thousands of refugees and their hosts to access clean cooking solutions over the next decade. In doing so it will link refugees and host communities to the global carbon markets, empowering them to become part of the global movement to combat climate change.
Tracking our effectiveness
In 2022 we launched the Pro Bono Portal, a tech solution that facilitates the management of a pro bono matter throughout its entire lifecycle. This streamlines the management of our pro bono practice and makes it easier to measure the effectiveness of pro bono projects by providing teams with valuable insights about the quality of our support and enabling us to systematically review where we could be making improvements. The Portal was co-designed with Justice Connect and Norton Rose Fulbright and built by Justice Connect's in-house development team.
Listening to our stakeholders
It's important that our pro bono activities are in line with the needs and priorities of our stakeholders. To ensure this, we regularly consult our stakeholders about our pro bono work whether through facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue, by conducting research, or by surveying specific groups about their experiences and thoughts.
In September 2021 we hosted a virtual stakeholder panel discussion at the Asia Pro Bono Conference. Entitled ESG and NGOs: Prospects and Possibilities, the session brought together more than 60 participants from countries across the region, including representatives from NGOs and other international law firms. During the session the panellists discussed topics ranging from the relevance of ESG to both the business sector and NGOs, and how the ESG trend can create unique opportunities for NGOs to influence corporate behaviours.
During the year we also gathered insights from female refugees about the new integration challenges they face as a result of the pandemic and published a report on the findings. Read more on page 69.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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A snapshot of the organisations we work with around the world
PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF VULNERABLE PEOPLE
Fondazione Italia Aboriginal Legal Services of
Western Australia Action for Education ActionAid Alliance des Avocats pour les Droits
de l'Homme Alliance for Lawyers at Risk American Childhood Cancer Organization Amnesty International UK Amref Health Africa Aoibhneas Appletree Childcare Arts Law Centre of Australia Asia's Hope Association Concerning Sexual Violence
Against Women Association Eveil Association for the Prevention of Torture Association for the Social Support of Youth Avocats Sans Frontieres Ayuda en Accin Babseacle Foundation Birmingham Citizens Advice Bureau Services Birmingham Settlement British Kidney Patient Association British Refugee Council Brotherhood of St Laurence Brcken fr Kinder Burma Campaign UK Business and Human Rights Resource Centre CARE International Care4Calais Casa di Zaccheo Center for Reproductive Rights Central England Law Centre Centre For Adults' Social Care Centre For Eye Research Australia Childhood Cancer International Christian Action Church Of England Children's Society Citizens Advice Bureau Leeds Clooney Foundation for Justice Coalizione Italiana Libert e Diritti Civili Combat Stress Connecting Myanmar Copenhagen Legal Aid Coram Children's Legal Centre Crisis Action CURE Epilepsy DanChurchAid Diakonie Flchtlingsdienst Doctors of the World Down Lleida Droits d'Urgence Dubai Autism Center Emmaus France Equal Legal Aid EuroCentralAsian Lesbian* Community European Council on Refugees and Exiles European Network on Statelessness European Organis for Rare Diseases Eurordis Evolvin' Women Fairshare Educational Foundation Feeding Hong Kong Fenix Humanitarian Legal Aid FightTheStroke Fitzroy Legal Service Fluchtlingsrat Baden-Wurttemberg
Foundacion Pro Bono Foundation Young Crisies Center Free Legal Advice Centres Freedom Through Education Fremantle Community Legal Centre Fresh Start Scotland Fundacin Pro Bono Espana Gesellschaft fr Freiheitsrechte Groupe pour l'Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles Global Alliance for Legal Aid Global Women Connect Glycemic Index Foundation Greater Manchester Aid Immigration Unit Greek Council for Refugees Hackney Migrant Centre Handicap International Heart on my Sleeve Movement Hintalovon Alaptvny Holocaust Educational Trust Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups Hong Kong Marriage Equality Hope for Justice Human Dignity Trust Human Rights at Sea Human Rights Watch Humanity Diaspo Humans for Rights Network Ilga Europe Indigo Foundation Innocence Project London International Bar Associations Human
Rights Institute International Organization for Migration International Refugee Assistance Project International Rehabilitation Council for
Torture Victims International Rescue Committee International Service for Human Rights International Step by Step Association Irish Hospice Foundation Justice Connect Justice Without Borders JustRight Scotland Kaleidoscope Trust Kreftforeningen KinderRechteForum La Fondation des Femmes Law Centres Network Law&Legal Studentische Rechtsberatung LawRight Lawyers for LGBT+ and Allies Network Lawyers in Charities group Leeds Cares Legacy Australia Incorporated Legal Center for NGO Legal Response International Legal Sector Alliance Lumos Foundation Macmillan Cancer Support Maddie Riewoldt's Vision Make-A-Wish Foundation Manchester Pride Manuel Bravo Project Medecins du Monde Italy Media Legal Defence Initiative Medical Foundation For The Care of Victims
of Torture Medici Senza Frontiere Mermaids UK Migrant Information Centre Migrantinnen-Netzwerk Bayern Minds Count Foundation Momentum Children's Charity
More Than Musical Musical Olympus Foundation Naczelna Rade Adwokacka Namati National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy National Agency for Legal Aid National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children Nationality for all Neighbourhood Advice-Action Council New Beginnings Reading North Queensland Youth Rehab Education
Equine Centre Norwegian Helsinki Committee Norwegian Refugee Council Palestine Children's Relief Fund Paul Pholeros Foundation Peace Brigades International United Kingdom PeaceMeals Inc Penal Reform International Platform for International Cooperation on
Undocumented Migrants Pink Alliance Limited Plan International Project Expedite Justice Public Interest Advocacy Centre Public Law Project Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre Redfern Legal Centre ReDI School of Digital Integration reDress REEP Foundation Refugee Action Refugee Legal Rejou Reprieve Right to Education Initiative Rolling Books Room to Read Safe Passage International Save the Children International Schools Consent Project Scottish Child Law Centre Scotty's Little Soldiers Serve the City Paris Shelter Scotland Skin Check Champions SOS Children's Villages South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group St. Anna Kinderkrebsforschung Standout Programmes Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Trans and Bisexuals Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion Taksenkangbloung Community Centre TeachForAustria Tent Partnership for Refugees Terre des Hommes France Advocates for Human Rights Alliance for International Medical Action British Red Cross Society The Center for Reproductive Rights The Children's Hospital Charity The Education for Employment Foundation The Elizabeth Evatt Community Legal Centre The Global FoodBanking Network Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria The Global Network for Public Interest Law The Hong Kong Joint Council for People
with Disabilities The Immigration Law Practitioners'
Association Limited
The National Deaf Children's Society The Pensions Advisory Service The Red Tab Foundation The Redress Trust Limited The Remedy Project Limited The Royal British Legion The Snowdrop Project The Spanish LGBT+ Federation United Nations World Food Programme The Yalda Hakim Foundation Thomson Reuters Foundation Tierrzte ohne Grenzen Transgender Equality Hong Kong TrustLaw UNAIDS UN Women UNICEF United Nations Entity for Gender Equality United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees United Way Espaa Up Zambia Urban Justice Center Utcajogasz Uyolo Validity Foundation Verband fr gemeinntziges Stiften Victoria Council for Civil Liberties Victorian Aboriginal Community Services Association Vital Voices Vivi Down Onlus Vluchtelingenwerk Volkshilfe Wien Voluntariado Express Volunteer It Yourself Wallumatta Legal Water for People We Are Living Proof WEConnect International Welfare Rights Centre West Wyalong Local Aboriginal Land Council Women Entrepreneurs Law Clinic Women in Sports Empowered Hong Kong Women's Refugee Commission York City Supporters Society Youth Off The Streets Youthlaw Young People's Legal Rights Centre
SUPPORTING CLIMATE JUSTICE AND CONSERVATION
Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production
African Clean Energy Birdlife Australia Calthorpe Community Garden Carbon13 Clean Air Network ClientEarth Climate Policy Radar CycloCollect Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Ecosia Ellen MacArthur Foundation Environmental Defenders Office Environmental Justice Foundation Ethiopian Environment, Forest and Climate
Change Commission European Environmental Bureau Four Paws Germanzero Hoja Nueva International Eco Fund International Land Coalition
London Wildlife Trust & London Wildlife Limited Ministry of Environment Protection of Georgia Open Climate Fix Port Sunlight Village Trust Project Dream Green Protect Our Winters Europe Relieve Furniture Renewable Energy and Energy
Efficiency Partnership Renewable Energy Institute Sefton Park Palm House Preservation Trust Smart Air Space for Giants Forest Peoples Programme Students Organising for Sustainability The Chancery Lane Project The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority Tropical Health and Education Trust World Wide Fund for Nature The Nature Conservatory Australian Committee for Conservation of Nature
and Natural Resources City Harvest Forgotten Park Foundations Material Cultures The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority
SUPPORTING EQUALITY AND GOOD GOVERNACE
Access Info Access Now Advocates for International Development Advokatrdet African Legal Support Facility Aimhire Training All Together Now Anaphylaxis Campaign Andrew Simpson Sailing Foundation Anxiety UK Art School London Article 19 Association of Antimonopoly Experts Aura Fundacio Australian Pro Bono Centre Australian Strategic Policy Institute Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens Bangladesh Forum for Legal
& Humanitarian Affairs Barndrmmen Be Free Societa' Cooperativa Sociale Birthe Daells Fond Branches of Hope Limited Business Law and Arbitration Research Centre
of Katmandu Catapult Ideas Charitable Choice CMV Action Community Focus Inclusive Arts Community Law and Mediation Coordination SUD CSV Trentino-Non Profit Network DataKind DHRRA Malaysia Dialogue Social Enterprise Duty Lawyer Service East Africa Law Society Egytt a csaldrt Alaptvny The Good Lobby Encore Youth Theatre Etherisc Impact European Center for Not-for-Profit Law European Implementation Network
European Law Students Association European Peacebuilding Liaison Office Excite Active Fondo Ambiente Italiano Faith in Love Foundation Fondazione Fiera Milano Fondazione Roma Fosun International Foundation for International
Arbitration Advocacy Global Sustainability Benchmark in Sports Government of Antigua and Barbuda Government of the Democratic Republic
of Timor-Leste Government of the Republic of Vanuatu Grow F Gruppo delle Medaglie d'Oro al Valor
Militare d'Italia Habitat for Humanity International Hatch Enterprise HateAid Heartland Alliance International Heritage Lab HOST International ImpactHK Impakt South Africa Institute for Human Rights and Business International Bar Association International Civil Society Centre International News Safety Institute Joannahuset Jump Foundation Limited Konexio Love 21 Foundation Mission Beyond MyLawStory New Perimeter Open for Business OSLO Pride Oxford Policy Fellowship Parliamentarians for Global Action Pericles Center for International Legal Education Pictologue Prince's Trust International Procedeerwinkel Project 17 Public International Law & Policy Group Digital Freedom Fund Techsoup Global The Albert Kennedy Trust The Apache Software Foundation The Armenian Community of Hong Kong
and China The Cathedral Archer Project The Duke of Edinburgh's International
Award Foundation The Friendship Bench The Judicial & Legal Studies Institute The Lochner Programme The Maggie Oliver Foundation The Nehemiah Project The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess
of Cambridge The Sion Mullane Foundation The Sutton Trust The Trustee For Shrine Of Remembrance
Foundation Trust The Zubin Mahtani Gidumal Foundation United Nations Office for Project Services Verein Ute Bock World Resources Institute Equality Now Young Assets Foundation
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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What's next
Using technology to improve legal services
We're exploring how to use technology to improve access to justice around the world. Recent technology-driven pro bono projects include a tool for NGOs planning to open offices in other countries, and a portal that streamlines the process by which pro bono teams gather data and produce reports. In the coming years we'll continue to leverage technology to improve the quality of and access to legal services.
Expanding our climate justice and conservation work
Sound legal advice is vital in efforts to protect biodiversity and address the climate crisis. Working in a pro bono capacity, we act for governments and leading climate advocacy and conservation organisations on a wide range of environmental projects; from sustainable climate solutions to initiatives promoting a human rights-based approach to wildlife conservation. We'll continue to expand this important work through the coming years.
Supporting equality and good governance
Good governance is key to the success of any sustainability initiative, including Net Zero transition plans. We give our lawyers in key practice groups and sectors a wide range of opportunities to advise on responsible business conduct, and we plan to expand our efforts in this area in the coming months. For example, in 2022 we will partner with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change to produce a policy report on integrity risks, including corruption, in sustainability and climate solutions (a working session will be held at COP27). Other planned projects including drafting a code of conduct for a national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and a research project for Oxfam on land tenure systems in Chad, including an analysis of how corruption and the lack of rule of law impacts rural communities' land rights.
Embedding value in everything we do
We're committed to making business better by supporting our clients and communities on their journey to a more sustainable future, and we want to be sure that each project we choose to work on aligns with that purpose. Our firm has a new mandate to pursue projects that have a positive impact while generating economic value, and our Responsible Business team is supporting this by building a new practice called Shared Value: Purpose, Profit and Impact. The project will help us support our clients in strengthening their own shared value strategies, while also fostering cooperation between our key clients and civil society for a sustainable future.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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5.0 Our Environment
The climate emergency is upon us, and it demands transformative action, today. Through our near-term science-based emissions reduction target and our long-term Net Zero transition plans, we're responding with the urgency the crisis demands.
90% Reduce our absolute carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and by 90% by 2040 (base year: 2019) across scopes 1, 2 and 3
Read on: 5.1 Net Zero transition 5.2 Operational footprint 5.3 Circular economy 5.4 Green supply chain
25% Reduce supply chain emissions by 25% by 2030 (base year: 2019)
95% Divert 95% of our waste from landfill by 2025
75% Reduce our business travel footprint by 75% by 2030 (base year: 2019)
100% Source 100% of electricity from renewable energy in the UK by 2025 and all our offices by 2030
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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5.1 Net Zero transition
Our impacts
The climate crisis is already having a severe impact around the world and transformative, concerted action to slash emissions in the next few years is required to avoid missing a "rapidly closing window to secure a livable future." These were the stark findings of the February 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report.
The urgency of the climate emergency is reflected by stakeholders in our recent materiality assessment, which found that the Net Zero transition is our number one material issue. It has become the norm for clients to ask legal firms to set out a credible climate strategy as a requirement of bidding for work. In the assessment, clients also said that having such a strategy is now essential for legal firms to be considered credible advisors on sustainability.
Professional Services is not a carbon intensive sector and the vast majority of our carbon footprint is in our supply chain, which includes business travel. However, as with all professional service firms, the most significant aspect of our footprint is the impact and influence of our climate and environmental work with clients. This means our work to decarbonise our own operations, while important, is inseparable from our wider impact. Achieving the carbon transition also means transforming our wider business strategy, and we're just at the beginning of this journey. As we make progress, we will share lessons learned with our clients, so we can collaborate effectively and support their own transitions to Net Zero.
1.1C In 2022 the world is already experiencing 1.1C (2F) of global warming.
20 million Since 2008, floods and storms have forced more than 20 million people from their homes each year.
1/3 Since 1961, crop productivity growth in Africa shrunk by a third due to climate change.
Source: World Resources Institute
From left to right: Ian Hagg, Director of Responsible Business and Claire Lindsay, Senior Brand Manager, Marketing and Business and Development.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Our operational carbon footprint
Our baseline carbon footprint (covering all 3 scopes) in 2019/20 was 129,908 tCO2e, or about 17.1 tCO2e per employee or partner. Since 2019/20, our overall carbon footprint reduced by 47%, and our emissions per person have reduced to 9 tCO2e.
Scope 1: 2% of our footprint sits in Scope 1. These are emissions from use of fuel in our company vehicles, use of natural gas or diesel to power our offices, and use of refrigerants in our air conditioning.
Scope 2: 3% of our footprint sits in Scope 2. These are indirect emissions from the electricity we use in our offices.
Scope 3: The vast majority (95%) of our carbon footprint sits in Scope 3. These are indirect emissions that are generated in our value chain due to our business activities. They include emissions from purchased goods and services (75%), capital goods (14%), business travel (4%), employee commuting (3%), fuel and energy related activities (3%), upstream transport and distribution (<1%), processing of waste and water supply (<1%).
Progress towards our carbon reduction targets
Scope 1
Scope 2
Scope 3
150,000 129,908
tCO2e
100,000 50,000
87,860
47% reduction
69,034
2030 target: 50% reduction
Our advised emissions
While we are fully committed to reaching Net Zero emissions in our operations by 2040, we recognise that our biggest potential contribution to global decarbonisation efforts is by helping clients on their own Net Zero journeys. As a firm that advised over 13,000 clients in the last financial year alone, this is where our climate impact is greatest. We're taking important steps to ensure our approach to client work is aligned with our climate ambition, including how we map and measure advised emissions. For more on our client work and how it relates to ESG issues, see section 3.1 Client advice on ESG.
0 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
2040 target: 90% reduction*
* Our Net Zero target is to reduce absolute scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions 90% by 2040 from a 2019 base year and to neutralise the remaining, residual emissions at the Net Zero target year, 2040, through carbon removal.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Our commitments
Our carbon reduction targets
We have a near-term target to halve our carbon footprint in all three scopes by 2030 against a 2019 baseline. This is a Science-based Target aligned with the aims of the Paris Agreement to hold global heating to 1.5C, and was approved by the SBTi in September 2021.
In 2022 our leadership agreed to build further on our near-term target and committed us to becoming a Net Zero law firm by 2040. This target will be aligned with the SBTi Net Zero Standard and will consist of the following: to reduce absolute scope 1. 2 and 3 GHG emissions 90% by 2040 from a 2019 base year and to neutralise the remaining, residual emissions at the Net Zero target year, 2040, through carbon removal. Our Net Zero target is undergoing a process of target verification by the SBTi at the time of publication of this report. To ensure we can achieve this longer-term target, we're evolving our existing climate strategy and developing a climate transition plan.
External climate commitments
Business Ambition for 1.5C
UN Global Compact
Legal Renewables Initiative (UK)
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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Our decarbonisation strategy
We are actively developing our decarbonisation plan and are focusing our planning and transformation in six pillars: direction, governance, engagement, performance, data, and disclosure.
Energy: Review and implement opportunities for optimisation projects and upgrades to drive energy reductions. We've already reduced our Scope 1 and 2 market-based emissions by 35% since 2019.
Workplace: Establish processes and procedures to integrate carbon reduction into all stages of the property lifecycle. This year we adopted our Future Workplace principles, enabling us to reduce the environmental footprint of many of our offices.
Procurement: Review procurement policies and processes to drive carbon reduction behaviour in line with our climate targets. This year we piloted a supplier climate action engagement plan, the results of which are informing our longer-term supply chain decarbonisation approach.
Business travel: Develop low-carbon travel policy, incentivise reductions in business travel and establish a process for tracking travel data. This year we launched Thoughtful Travel, a campaign that asks our people to think more carefully about their business travel choices and decisions.
Performance
Prioritised roadmap of measures that will improve energy efficiency, minimise carbon footprint and s ave costs
Disclosure Internal reporting engages and drives actions, external reporting enhances reputation
Direction A clear vision supported by credible targets and a strong business case
Governance Well defined responsibilities and approach to managing climate risks
Data Robust, granular and trusted data that provides insight
Engagement Effective internal a nd external engagement t o achieve strategic goals
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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Actions we're taking
Working with suppliers
Because our supply chain accounts for the vast majority of our total carbon footprint, working with our suppliers is a key part of our climate action strategy. Building on our work in mapping the hot spots in our supply chain in 2021, we have now carried out climate engagement with some of our key suppliers, with plans to roll this out to all key suppliers by the end of 2022. Read more in section 5.4 Green supply chain.
24% of our procurement spend in 21/22 was covered by a Science-based Target.
25 suppliers accounted for 50% of our procurement emissions in 21/22.
Cutting emissions from business travel
As a global company, travel has long been part of how we do business. It is also a significant contributor to our operational carbon footprint originally making up 21% of it. We're committed to working with our clients and lawyers to reduce our business travel footprint by 75% by 2030. Reducing our travel emissions may prove to be the most challenging aspect of our decarbonisation and we estimate that a 9% year on year reduction will be needed to achieve our near-term Science-based Target.
In 2021/22 travel emissions accounted for just 4% of our overall carbon emissions. This drop is largely a result of the combination of COVID-19 induced travel reductions and our efforts to reduce and decarbonise our
travel, and we expect as business returns to a post-COVID-19 normal this proportion will begin to rise again.
As a first step in our efforts to decarbonise business travel, in 2021 we launched Thoughtful Travel, a campaign that asks our people to think more carefully about business travel, avoiding journeys when they can, and choosing less carbon-intensive forms of transport when travel is unavoidable.
This approach is closely supported by advances in technology which have enabled us to have higher quality, reliable video conferencing and document co-authoring, for example.
Since then, we've focused on using data to make our approach more effective. We're working with our travel management companies to collect data on the carbon intensity of our journeys. This will equip our people with information about the impact of their travel choices and help us build a system to track our progress against our Net Zero target at country, business service and practice level.
Alongside this, we have begun to track carbon emissions related to business events and hotel stays, and work with our event organisers to minimise this.
We're also working with clients to agree a shared approach to report, reduce and compensate for the embedded carbon of new instructions. This will result in agreed carbon budgets and reporting, including agreements with clients to avoid or minimise emissions from travel.
Following a steep decline during the pandemic, business travel rates are beginning to rise again. Our challenge is to ensure we don't revert to business as usual, building on the lessons of the pandemic.
Business travel emissions
Air Rail Car and motorcyle
Taxi Hotel
30,000 25,000
25,477
20,000
t CO2e
15,000
10,000
5,000
0 2019/20
255 2020/21
2,668 2021/22
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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Moving to renewables
We're aiming for our UK and European offices to use 100% renewable electricity by 2025, and for all remaining offices to use 100% renewable electricity by 2030. These targets are in line with our Science-based Carbon Reduction Target.
Energy type in our offices
Non-renewable Partially renewable
Renewable
Africa 2 non-renewable
Europe 9 non-renewable
Asia-Pacific 10 non-renewable
6 partially renewable 18 renewable
2 partially renewable
Middle East 5 non-renewable
CORPORATE POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENT
Purchasing 100% renewable electricity from existing suppliers will contribute to our Net Zero target, but we recognise that the climate crisis requires more, including the creation of new renewable energy, known as additionality. In 2022, we signed a corporate power purchase agreement with NextEnergy Group to generate energy from a new-build solar farm in the UK. The deal makes us the first law firm anywhere in the world to undertake a corporate power purchase agreement (PPA).
The 46-acre solar farm will produce 13MW per hour of additional renewable power annually that will be supplied directly to the UK's national grid, and thereby to the power network supplying our 15 European and UK offices taking part in the project. Environmental credits generated by the project that exceed our power requirements will be used to incentivise selected suppliers to reduce their emissions in accordance with targets that we will develop together.
Previously, corporate PPAs were only an option for businesses with high intensity power needs, but we've demonstrated that businesses with lower power needs can facilitate the creation of additionality. Also, despite the regulatory complexity post-Brexit, the agreement demonstrates that multi-jurisdictional corporate PPAs (across the EU and the UK) are possible.
"Next Energy is very excited to be working with DLA Piper to deliver the Bindwell Lane solar farm. It will generate sufficient green electricity to avoid the discharge of approximately 154 ktCO2e of GHG emissions over its 40-year lifespan. The array will also include a wide variety of biodiversity measures; including the planting of new hedgerow, installation of bird and bat boxes plus bug "hotels" too. There will also be new rough grassland in the buffers, and a new fine grass seed mix sown under the solar panels themselves. This delivers an improvement of 30% and 52% to the ecology and hedgerow respectively. But the plan will be reviewed following annual monitoring and measurement to ensure biodiversity thrives and creates maximum benefit."
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Energy efficient offices
Improving the energy efficiency of our offices is a key part of our decarbonisation strategy. We're doing this in three ways: by increasing energy efficiency in our existing office buildings, moving offices to more energy-efficient buildings, and considering energy optimisation in every aspect of moving into a new building, including office fit-outs. Read more in section 5.2 Operational footprint.
Designing the future workplace
In 2022 our Executive approved the Future Workplace principles, giving the firm a working remit to move to a more flexible property design and thereby reduce the environmental footprint of many of our offices. Read more in section 5.2 Operational footprint.
INTEGRATING CLIMATE CONSIDERATIONS INTO OUR BUSINESS STRATEGY
Using the framework of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), we have completed a comprehensive gap analysis and an initial assessment of our climate risks and opportunities, to ensure our climate strategy is fully integrated into our overall business strategy.
In 2022 and early 2023, we plan to carry out a deep-dive climate scenario analysis. This will allow us to quantify the financial impacts of climate change on our firm and embed climate considerations into our risk management process and improve our disclosures related to this. The outcomes of this work will inform our climate transition plan.
As well as managing climate risks more effectively, we're also looking to improve our climate-related financial planning. We're doing this by:
introducing internal carbon pricing. We're piloting two methodologies, for shadow pricing in property management and procurement, and carbon fees for business travel to inform and influence decision-making;
defining our approach to investment in low-carbon R&D, sustainable IT solutions and carbon sequestration projects;
engaging our supply chain and leveraging our influence to promote decarbonisation.
To improve transparency around the carbon impacts of our client work, we're also piloting a sustainable instruction proposition. Through the initiative, we will measure and report on the carbon intensity of the activities related to any given instruction. This will help us achieve desired emissions reductions by avoiding and minimising carbon impacts and compensating unavoidable emissions by co-financing climate resilience projects.
DATA MANAGEMENT
To support our climate goals, we introduced a cloud-based data management software in 2021. This has allowed us to significantly improve the completeness, accuracy, consistency and transparency of our emissions inventory and achieved reductions, and we're continuing our work to improve data quality further.
In recent months we've carried out external data verification exercises. Carbon Intelligence verified our international carbon footprint, while Carbon Trust verified our UK footprint.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Engaging our people on Net Zero action
Reaching Net Zero depends on teamwork. To meet our target, we'll need engagement and action from people across our firm, in all offices, departments, and levels of seniority. All our new starters learn about our carbon reduction targets and priority areas during their induction, to ensure everyone at DLA Piper is aware of our commitment and our policies.
This year we continued to grow our eMission 2030 champion network, now consisting of over 170 champions (that's more than five champions per country), to drive office-level engagement and action. In the coming year we'll shift focus from growing the network to identifying ways we can better support our champions to make effective change.
We've also piloted our Carbon Literacy Training in our UK offices to a cohort of 16 colleagues. The training covers the basics of climate science, our own footprint and strategy, and asks our people to consider what changes they can make in the context of their own roles at DLA Piper. In 2023 we will roll out this training out more widely so that most of our UK workforce becomes carbon literate. We'll also adapt the training so it can be delivered in the rest of our geographies. Read more in section 2.3 Nurturing talent.
A considered approach to carbon neutrality
Our climate strategy focuses first and foremost on rapid decarbonisation. To reach Net Zero, aligned to the SBTi Net Zero Standard we're committed to reducing emissions by 90% by 2040 and for the remaining areas of our value chain where emissions are unavoidable, we will neutralise the remaining residual emissions through carbon removal.
Supporting climate justice and conservation through pro bono
Providing pro bono legal advice is an important part of our climate strategy. Working in a pro bono capacity, we act for governments and leading climate advocacy and conservation organisations on a wide range of environmental projects: from sustainable climate solutions to initiatives promoting a human rights-based approach to wildlife conservation.
Recent examples include the following:
Protecting the marine environment
We supported a consortium of international conservation organisations working with the government of Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, to create the largest marine protected zone (MPZ) in the Atlantic Ocean. The programme forms part of the UK government's 30 by 30 pledge to protect 30% of the world's oceans by 2030. An international legal team helped develop an innovative privately financed endowment fund to generate sustainable funding for wildlife and island communities in the protected zone. The project establishes a valuable model for protected area expansion alongside long-term financial stability for local communities.
Tackling wildlife crime
Together with TRAFFIC and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, we're working to reduce poaching and trafficking of endangered wildlife in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on Madagascar. The initial stages of the project focus on delivering training to successfully prosecute wildlife crimes.
Financing sustainability projects
We're working with a range of think tanks to devise new models to finance environmental and sustainability programmes. This includes supporting bonds that will provide loans to SMEs working in land restoration in Africa, advising on a blockchain insurance product offering affordable crop insurance to smallholder farmers to guard against extreme weather events and developing innovative models to finance projects to protect wildlife and biodiversity.
Developing climate law
We work with governments in several developing countries to help them develop their climate and biodiversity legislation. We also contribute to initiatives to strengthen the international law framework. For example, we're working with the African Green Infrastructure Investment Bank and other partners to draft a model law that will help emerging and developing countries meet their greenhouse gas reduction commitments by investing in green infrastructure.
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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Delivering climate solutions
We're working with The Chancery Lane Project (TCLP), a network of lawyers focused on climate drafting which seeks to accelerate change by providing expert, peer-reviewed contractual clauses and commercial agreements to deliver climate solutions. TCLP maintains an open-access bank of climate clauses and provides unique tools and training for lawyers. We've formed a cross-practice Green Drafting Group and our UKbased lawyers are being trained on Net Zero contract drafting and climate clauses.
Safeguarding biodiversity
Our pro bono lawyers are assisting the firm's long-standing partner, the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, on a research project supporting Durrell's Island Restoration Programme, run in partnership with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. The programme protects biodiversity on the country's offshore islets where conservation efforts have been frustrated by a lack of clarity on legal protections and proper training of law enforcement officials.
"I 've been chasing poachers and smugglers for 20 years now, working to protect one of the most smuggled endemic Malagasy species, the ploughshare tortoise. This work is crucial as it deals with a current and real emergency. At the same time, it's about protecting my country's future."
Hasina Randriamanampisoa, Ploughshare Protection Project Officer at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Madagascar
Collaborating on climate action
Tackling the climate crisis depends on collaboration between all stakeholders, from businesses to policymakers and NGOs. We support multi-stakeholder efforts to address climate change, are actively engaged in external advocacy on climate action.
Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Forum: DLA Piper is a member of the forum, a global and multi-disciplinary consultative network of institutional supporters who share the vision and mission of the TNFD.
Carbon Markets and Investors Association (CMIA): The CMIA is an independent trade association providing leadership from the private sector in the delivery of investments to enable a transition to a climate-resilient, low-carbon, sustainable economy. We have sat on the board of the CMIA since 2008.
The European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET): An association of European energy traders in markets for wholesale electricity and gas. We act as main external counsel to EFET for renewable energy and documentation related to carbon markets, such as the Renewable Power Purchase Agreement and the Certificates Master Agreement.
For details of our involvement in legal sector initiatives, see section 3.1 Client advice on ESG.
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1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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NET ZERO DELIVERY SUMMIT
In May, we supported the Net Zero Delivery Summit, an international summit focused on Net Zero delivery and the progress of key priorities for finance agreed at COP26 in Glasgow. The summit provided an opportunity to engage with finance and corporate leaders, experts and senior ministers. Before the summit we also supported a roundtable discussion with leaders from the banking and insurance sectors on the challenges Net Zero plans pose to these sectors. The discussion led to a series of recommendations that were shared with the Prime Minister and other MPs.
THIRD-PARTY ASSESSMENTS AND CERTIFICATIONS
CDP Climate Change assessment: We received a B on the CDP Climate Change questionnaire in December 2021, for the second year in a row (the average for our sector is C.) Our response is publicly available on the CDP website here.
Ecovadis: We received a score of 70/100 on the Environment section of our EcoVadis assessment in March 2022.
Carbon Trust: In the UK, our carbon footprint is certified by the Carbon Trust. Our most recent assessment, conducted in May-July 2022, used the qualifying requirements from the Carbon Trust's new Route to Net Zero Standard.
What's next
Our priority is to continue to develop a robust climate transition plan, with a focus on transforming our business strategy and our approach to client work to align with our climate ambition.
We're hosting a number of events and engagements pre, during and post COP27. For example, during Africa Week 2022 (October 37), we hosted a series of events to bring together global and regional businesses, financiers, investors, policy makers and thought leaders for an insightful and honest debate of the key issues shaping Africa's prospects for growth.
0.0 Introduction
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 5.2 Operational footprint
5.2 Operational footprint
Our impacts
We use energy and water across our offices internationally. Compared with other areas of our business, the environmental impact of our energy and water use is relatively small. However, we are committed to minimising it.
Beyond energy and water use, our operational footprint includes other impacts such as waste, business travel and procurement. For more on waste management and circularity, see section 5.3 Circular economy. For more about our travel and supply chain impacts, see section 5.1 Net Zero transition and section 5.4 Green supply chain.
Our commitments
We're aiming to reduce energy and water use by adopting responsible consumption practices. These include switching to renewable energy and making our buildings and offices more energy and water efficient.
OUR ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES
Our firmwide policies guide our actions around environmental sustainability:
Environmental Sustainability policy: applies to all our offices and requires every employee to take reasonable care of the environment.
Energy Management policy: commits us to reducing our energy use and carbon emissions and sets out how we will meet this commitment.
COMMITMENTS, PARTNERSHIPS AND CERTIFICATIONS
Our environmental management is aligned with locally and internationally recognised standards and initiatives.
Certifications: we've operated a comprehensive SHE (Safety, Health and Environment) management system since 2005. We're certified to the ISO 14001 standard globally, and our UK offices are also certified to ISO 50001 and Carbon Trust standards.
The UN Global Compact: we're signatories of the UNGC and annually report our progress against the principles of the Compact, including environmental principles 7, 8 and 9. In 2022, we were an early adopter of UNGC's enhanced Communication on Progress.
The Legal Renewables Initiative: in 2020 our UK offices committed to the Legal Renewables Initiative. This means we've pledged to source all electricity for all premises from certified, non-greenwashed 100% renewable sources by 2025.
As a founding member of the Legal Sustainability Alliance in the UK, we work to promote sustainability reporting and sharing of best practice in the legal sector. We also support this model in Australia, through the Australian Legal Sector Alliance.
Business Ambition for 1.5C: we've set a Science-based Target for carbon reduction, which was validated by the Science-based Targets initiative in September 2021, and in 2022 we've set a target to become a Net Zero business by 2040. Our Net Zero target is currently being assessed by the Science-based Targets initiative.
ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT
Our Board is the senior governance body of the firm with responsibility for supporting the overall success and sustainability of the firm (including environmental sustainability). The Executive is responsible for the day-to-day management of our environmental performance.
Our Managing Director of Sustainability and Resilience, who sits on the Executive, has responsibility for coordinating and intensifying our actions across ESG, Responsible Business and Pro Bono, Law& and Risk.
A range of working groups and sub-committees support the executive and the board. These include:
Risk Committee responsible for overseeing the implementation of our firmwide approach to managing risk, including ESG risk.
Sustainability and ESG Steering Committee responsible for providing leadership and encouraging innovation in our client-facing efforts on ESG issues. The steering committee also has oversight of ESG risk management.
International Energy and Climate Change Committee (IECC) responsible for setting internal strategic priorities for operational sustainability and leading the implementation of practical projects and initiatives, with a focus on energy and carbon reduction.
SHE (Safety, Health, Environment) Management Planning Committee responsible for maintaining management systems (including for environmental and energy management) and supporting external verification and certification schemes (such as ISO and Carbon Trust).
Each of our offices contributes to meeting our firmwide environmental targets under the leadership of their Office Managing Partner (OMP). OMPs appoint Environmental Leads in their respective offices to champion environmental initiatives at a local level in support of our firmwide environmental objectives.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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Actions we're taking
Using less water
Water consumption is the smallest of our operational environmental impacts in terms of materiality.
As most of our offices are rented, we have limited control over our water supply and water conservation measures. However, in our biggest offices we work with our landlords to continuously review opportunities to improve water efficiency and to incorporate water saving and treatment innovations in our office fit-outs. When we move into new office spaces, we review the building's water efficiency and ensure the latest water-saving technology is used.
We're working to gather more reliable data about water use in our offices. Once we have an accurate baseline, we will develop comprehensive plans to ensure water efficiency across all our offices.
Some of our offices have taken a lead in water efficient systems and technologies. For example, our Warsaw office has a system that recycles the water in the office so it can be reused. Our Auckland and Wellington offices use rainwater capture systems.
Energy efficient offices
Optimising our offices to use energy more efficiently is a key part of our decarbonisation strategy. We improve the energy efficiency of our offices in three main ways:
Improving energy efficiency in our existing offices
In the past two years, we've audited 11 of our offices to identify opportunities to reduce energy use. As a result, energy consumption in these offices has fallen by 24.7% and cost of energy use by 26.6%.
Our improving digital maturity has also allowed us to reduce our on-site storage requirements for data, servers and telephony, and to move to more energy efficient externally provided service centres and cloud services.
Gradually moving offices to more energy efficient buildings
For example, in July 2021 we moved our Birmingham office to a new state-of-the-art building. As a result, electricity consumption reduced four-fold and overall emissions from energy use were reduced by nearly 200 tCO2e (2% of our total International baseline emissions from Scope 1 and 2).
Energy optimisation
We ensure that energy optimisation is considered at every stage of the lifecycle of the office building, including in sustainable office fit-out. We have partnered with Buro Happold to build a strategic approach to deciding on new office locations, and how we fit out those offices, to optimise energy use.
Our plans include introducing shadow pricing for selecting our suppliers for office fit-outs.
Emissions from use of gas and electricity
Scope 1 energy emissions
Scope 2 energy emissions (market-based)
5,000
4,000
tCO2e
3,000
2,000
1,000
0 2019/20
2020/21
2021/22
0.0 Introduction
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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> 5.2 Operational footprint
Renewable energy generation in offices
We're reviewing the feasibility of our biggest offices generating their own renewable electricity, like London and Leeds, and will put in place more concrete plans in the near future.
Workplaces fit for the future
For our offices to be places that are sustainable and conducive to wellbeing, we need to ensure our people can use them in a way that suits their needs. That's the idea behind our Future Workplace principles, which we adopted in 2022. The principles give us a remit to design our working spaces in more flexible ways and to reduce the environmental footprint of our offices as a result.
DLA Piper Future Workplace principles
1. T he world has changed, and we now need to provide greater choice and flexibility in our workplaces and trust our people to do what works for them and the firm.
2. W e need to use office space differently and more efficiently. For those who choose not to be in the office full-time, we need to break the allocation of one person to one desk leading to a reduction in our office footprint.
3. O ur drive towards better quality and more sustainable buildings requires us to design more flexible spaces for shared and multiple uses by our staff and our clients.
4. O ur designs will prioritise wellbeing and social concepts into our spaces to inspire and promote collaboration.
5. In a world of increasing uncertainty, we must incorporate flexibility into both our workplace design and lease structures.
The principles are already guiding our approach to workplace design. For example, for all new buildings, we are aiming for a BREAAM rating of Excellent, and Well certification. Major new offices such as those in Amsterdam, Leeds and Madrid will target compliance with these internationally recognised sustainability standards.
We've also started gathering data on all our certifications across our firm internationally to understand what we already have and what agendas we want to drive with our landlords.
What's next
We will continue to roll out our optimisation programme. Once we have accurate baseline data on water use throughout our offices, we will develop an action plan for working with our landlords to improve water efficiency where it's most needed.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 5.3 Circular economy
5.3 Circular economy
Our impacts
Some of our firm's everyday activities such as the use of paper in our offices, food and packaging in our canteens and materials for events use natural resources and produce waste. As a professional services firm, the impact of these activities on the natural environment is small compared with other sectors such as manufacturing. However, we do have an impact and considering the size of our firm, it is a significant one.
As a firm committed to operating sustainably, we want to mitigate any impact we have on nature and biodiversity, no matter how small. For this reason, we're committed to adopting a circular approach to resource use, recovering, reusing and recycling materials as much as possible. Using circular economy practices is also important for our reputation as a credible ESG partner and advisor for our clients and suppliers.
Currently, most of our waste is either recycled or composted. We use a significant proportion of it to generate energy. However, about 10% of our waste still finds its way to landfill.
Our ability to divert waste away from landfill varies by region, depending on local waste management infrastructure. In some of our offices, thanks to locally supportive infrastructure, we've already been able to reach diversion from landfill of over 95% of our waste.
90% of our waste was diverted from landfill in 2021/22.
Waste produced vs diverted from landfill
Total waste produced 1,500,000
Total waste diverted from landfill
1,200,000
kg
900,000 600,000
300,000 0
2019/20
2020/21
2021/22
Waste diverted from landfill
100% 80% 60%
62%
76%
90%
95% by 2025
40%
20% 0
2019/20
2020/21 2021/22
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
87
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 5.3 Circular economy
Our commitments
In 2018 we set a target to divert 95% of our waste from landfill by 2025.
Our internal Sustainable Procurement Policy, launched in December 2020, commits us to taking a life cycle perspective on goods and services. We continuously improve our internal management systems so we can do this better and more effectively.
As we approach our target deadline, and as we review our ambitions and plans in light of our materiality assessment results, we're adopting a more holistic approach to waste management. The new approach is in line with SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production.
Our approach will be based on three pillars:
Managing consumption: minimising our use of natural resources and promoting sustainable consumption of good and services. We'll ask internal buyers to review their purchasing habits and consider changes. As part of this we'll review our most procured goods and products to understand what materials we use, and what alternatives are needed and available. We'll also map out our critical sources of waste to help inform our policies and culture.
Reducing waste generation: for goods and products that we do need to continue purchasing, we'll identify tactics to prevent waste, prioritise reduction and reuse and finally recycle as a last resort. For example, we'll work with key suppliers to understand if packaging could be reduced, or if a product could be repurposed at the end of its useful life.
Disposing responsibly: when disposal is unavoidable, we'll explore alternatives to landfilling through partnerships and innovation.
We expect to better define this approach and translate it into action over the next few years. We will report back on our progress in next year's report.
Food waste
In spring 2022 we launched a pilot food waste data project, where we began tracking food waste with a consistent methodology across all seven of our UK offices. Based on the results, we will set a target for food waste reduction a nd identify improvements that need to be made in our canteens. We'll also share these learnings with our other offices with canteens, as well as with our events catering teams.
Single use plastics
Many of our offices internationally have made efforts to eliminate single use plastics.
Actions we are taking
As we look to refresh our circular economy strategy, we've already been making progress in some of our key resource use areas.
IT hardware
In the UK, 100% of our IT hardware goes to Restore Technology at the end of its life. The company aims to refurbish equipment so it can have a new life, negating the need for new hardware to be manufactured to replace it. When this isn't possible, they make sure hardware is recycled to the highest standard.
For example, in the UK we have been working with a stationery supplier to develop a fully biodegradable binder that doesn't currently exist in the marketplace. Other steps include introducing plastic-free front covers, as well as many changes in our canteens, like eliminating single-use cutlery or plastic take-away containers.
As our data collection and management processes mature, we'll develop a more holistic understanding of our use of single use plastics, which will inform and improve our plans to eliminate them.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
88
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 5.3 Circular economy
Paper
As a law firm, we consume a significant amount of paper as part of our daily operations. The pulp and paper industry is a significant contributor to deforestation, which has significant knock-on environmental impacts.
Over the last few years, we've introduced many paper-saving interventions. These include double-sided printing by default, limiting storage facilities to encourage electronic filing, and moving to digital signing of documents.
From 2019, the percentage of paper we send to landfill by weight has dropped from 11.3% to 0.6%. Our overall disposal of paper by weight has dropped 44% in the last three years.
In March 2020, due to COVID-19 pressures, we significantly expanded and normalised the practice of signing documents electronically, through our provider DocuSign. Over the last year, DocuSign estimates that they have helped us save over 900 million kg of wood, 22 billion litres of water, 2 billion kg of carbon, and 148 million kg of waste.
We're also supporting sector-level movements to reduce paper use (among other environmental impacts). For example, we're a signatory to the Campaign for Greener Arbitrations and the Greener Litigation Pledge, both of which aim to work with the legal system actors to reduce the need for printing (for example, by lifting requirements on copies of court documents, or by allowing hearings to take place virtually).
Events and conferences
We've held fewer events since the pandemic and produced less waste as a result. Building on what we've learned from this, we're developing a risk assessment guide and process for planning and holding events, focusing on waste reduction. We've developed initial sustainable event guidelines for our internal event managers and will require our external event planners and suppliers to comply with our new requirements. Our approach and requirements will align with the ISO 20121 sustainable events standard.
Office moves and fit-outs
We're also focusing on aligning our office moves and office fit-outs with our sustainability goals. We've recently adopted DLA Piper Future Workplace principles, which give us a remit to design our new workplaces in more sustainable ways. Working with our partner Buro Happold, we've outlined an approach for choosing offices and fit-outs to optimise sustainability. Read more in section 5.2 Operational footprint.
Tracking our effectiveness
This year we've onboarded our new environmental data management system. We're working to ensure uptake of the system is 100% throughout our international offices. At the same time we are continuously improving our data collection and analysis to ensure we have the right information for making more sustainable decisions.
Over the next few years we expect to begin to be able to track our resource use and where opportunities for improvement lie in much closer detail.
What's next
Over the next two years we'll refresh our circular economy approach and strategy. This will include identifying the biggest areas for improvement in the areas of managing our consumption, reducing waste, and disposing responsibly, setting new targets and KPIs, and evolving our practices and culture to enable us to reach these new goals.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
89
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 5.4 Green supply chain
5.4 Green supply chain
Our impacts
Our firm is supported by a supply chain made up of thousands of businesses and sub-contractors, most of whom provide professional services such as consultancy, facilities management, HR support, IT and marketing.
Our suppliers account for 71% of our carbon emissions, and our latest assessment has shown that just 25 suppliers are responsible for half of these emissions. To reach our targets of becoming a Net Zero firm by 2040 and reducing our total carbon emissions by 90% from a 2019 baseline, it's essential that we work closely with our suppliers to reduce their emissions.
Aside from climate impacts, our procurement activities have other environmental, economic and social impacts, such as around the topics of working conditions or living wage. Our procurement decisions, such as the type of business we choose to work with, can also have positive impacts for local economies and empowerment of underrepresented groups.
Our commitments
We're committed to reducing the carbon footprint of our supply chain and mitigating other ESG risks within it.
As part of our Science-based Target to reduce our carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and our Net Zero target by 2040, we've adopted several supply-chain specific targets and KPIs. These include:
reducing our supply chain emissions by 25% by 2030;
for 50% of our suppliers to set a Science-based Carbon Reduction Target and commit to Net Zero by 2025, and 75% by 2030; and
screening 100% of new suppliers* using climate criteria in line with our target by 2023.
We have an internal Sustainable Procurement Policy that guides our approach to procuring sustainably. We also have a Supplier Code of Conduct that outlines the expectations we have of our suppliers in terms of their environmental and social performance.
We have a target for 100% of relevant colleagues (with procurement responsibilities) to complete our modern slavery training every year.
*This target only includes direct suppliers that have more than 5 employees.
From left and clock-wise: Ali Reed, Supplier Assurance & Process Manager; Magdalena Myszk, Procurement Analyst, and Paul Johnson, Head of Property & Workplace UK & Europe.
Emissions from purchased goods and services
80,000 60,000 40,000
78,746
63,137
2030 Target
48,967
tCO2e
20,000
0 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
90
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 5.4 Green supply chain
Purchased goods and services emissions 2021/22 (tCO2e)
External service support
Printing and journals
IT related People related
Business development & events Building related
Office related
4,108 tCO2e
680 tCO2e 776 tCO2e
3,466 tCO2e
17,382 tCO2e
7,018 tCO2e
15,536 tCO2e
Our emissions from procurement are currently calculated based on spend. Reductions achieved are due to changes in spending patterns caused by COVID-19 and other business trends, as well as improved data management.
Over the next years our focus will be on engaging with suppliers in our biggest emissions areas to obtain more accurate emissions data. This will allow us to have a more accurate understanding of carbon emissions reductions in our supply chain over time.
SUSTAINABLE PROCUREMENT GOVERNANCE
Formed in 2021, our Procurement Assurance Committee is a cross-functional group that meets monthly to review procurement and supplier-related risks. The group includes representatives from our Responsible Business team and can escalate risks to the Board's risk sub-committee, as needed.
The firm's Sustainable Procurement Working Group is charged with integrating social, environmental and economic considerations into how we manage our purchasing. The group brings together colleagues from key relevant functions. It meets quarterly to drive progress against its annual sustainable procurement work plan.
Our central Procurement team is responsible for strategic sourcing and Supplier Relationship Management, as well as overseeing the integration of ESG performance criteria throughout the procurement lifecycle.
SUPPLIER POLICIES
International Procurement Policy: Provides robust procurement principles and ensures they are applied consistently throughout our firm.
Sustainable Procurement Policy: Outlines the firm's approach and objectives for sustainable procurement. The policy was designed to align to ISO 20400 (Sustainable Procurement) principles.
Supplier Code of Conduct: Outlines the expectations we have for our suppliers and partners around issues such as human rights, child labour, health and safety, environmental sustainability and anti-bribery and corruption.
Human Rights and Modern Slavery Policy: Makes explicit our commitment to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other international standards.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
91
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 5.4 Green supply chain
Actions we are taking
Refreshing our approach to supplier management
To manage ESG risks in our supply chain, we first need to be able to measure them accurately. In 2021 we carried out an assessment to measure the importance of current and prospective suppliers to DLA Piper, as well as the potential risks they posed to the firm (including environmental and social risks). The assessment will be repeated annually or following any significant changes.
The results of the 2021 segmentation assessment informs our new supplier management framework (Total SRM (Supplier Relationship Management)). We're currently sourcing and will be implementing in late 2022 an IT solution so that Total SRM can be rolled out to all our Strategic, Critical, Leverage and Tactical suppliers internationally.
For suppliers who fall into these categories, or score highly for environmental and social risk, we will be putting into place a Climate Action Plan or a Social Action Plan, as necessary. These plans outline the objectives and milestones our suppliers need to reach to align with our own commitments and goals. Our Total SRM meeting framework covers ESG matters and progress against the plans within the standard agenda items.
How are ESG elements integrated into our procurement lifecycle?
Engaging with suppliers on climate action
According to our latest assessment, just 25 suppliers are responsible for half of our procurement-related emissions.
In early 2022 we trialled an engagement programme with nine of these key suppliers. We held an introductory call with the supplier's key representatives to share our climate action ambition and outlined the actions we expect them to take to align with our goals. We also asked these suppliers to fill out a climate action questionnaire.
We used insights from these engagements to identify the level of maturity of each supplier's climate strategy, and trialled use of our Supplier Climate Action Plan with each supplier.
Through the exercise, we gained a better understanding of how best to engage with key suppliers on climate issues and what kind of emissions data may be available. Based on these insights, we will roll out our Supplier Climate Action plan to all key suppliers in late 2022 / early 2023, as part of our Total SRM Framework roll-out.
We've also put in place processes for ongoing assurance, to ensure that the framework, tools and all supplier related policies are evolving as needed. Our Procurement Assurance Committee monitors any supplier key risks identified, and it regularly reviews supplier policies and processes to ensure they remain fit for purpose.
As part of this, we will ask suppliers to set a Science-based Target and commit to Net Zero, to begin reporting carbon emissions data to us regularly, and to work together to identify opportunities for climate action.
71% Our suppliers account for 71% of our emissions.
25 Just 25 suppliers are responsible for half of our total supply chain emissions.
24% 24% of our purchased goods & services spend is covered by a SBTi -validated target or commitment to set a target.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
92
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 5.4 Green supply chain
ESG considerations integrated into our procurement lifecycle
Before supplier selection
Agreeing terms with chosen supplier
Ongoing supplier relationship management
ABC
Supplier is reviewed against high risk country list
Supplier fills out due diligence questionnaire, which includes ESG criteria
Supplier scoring & selection
criteria includes ESG topics
DE
KPIs and action plans agreed in material ESG
areas as needed
Supplier agrees to Supplier Code
of Conduct
F GH
ESG criteria integrated into each supplier's balanced scorecard*
ESG criteria integrated into standard supplier meeting agendas*
Climate Action Plans are in place with Strategic and Critical
suppliers/suppliers in our top
emitters list*
* This will be fully implemented in early 2023
as we roll out our new supplier management tool.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
93
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 5.4 Green supply chain
Diversity and inclusion in our supply chain
As part of our sustainable procurement strategy, we promote diversity and inclusion in our supply chain. Where possible, we support and develop supplier relationships with minority-owned businesses and social enterprises. For example, in Australia, our Reconciliation Action Plan focuses onprocuring from Indigenous owned businesses (read more in our Regional Highlights report).
Over the past year we've made progress by integrating diversity-related questions into our supplier segmentation and assurance process. With the new Supplier Management platform, we'll soon be able to track suppliers'D&I characteristics more easily and generate actionable insights.
Modern Slavery law training
Since 2020, all colleagues with procurement responsibilities have received annual mandatory training around the modern slavery law and how to spot potential human rights issues in our supply chain. In 2023 we're planning to make modern slavery training mandatory for all our people, as well as improving our training and how we deliver it. Read more in section 6.2 Labour and human rights.
Tracking our effectiveness
Third-party assessments
To measure our progress, our sustainable procurement performance is assessed and rated by recognised independent third parties. In 2021 we received a B on our CDP Climate Supplier Engagement Rating, and raised our score from 40/100 to 70/100 in the EcoVadis Sustainable Procurement category.
In 2021 we participated in the Accenture Responsible Sourcing study, contributing to the development of the Responsible Sourcing Toolkit.
What's next
Over the next year, we will fully launch our supplier Climate Action Plan and build a more accurate picture of our Scope 3 carbon emissions, based on the data and insights we gather from these engagements. This will help us ensure we focus our efforts on the areas of our supply chain where we can make the biggest difference.
We will also fully operationalise our new approach to supplier management, giving us data and insights to better understand the risks and opportunities in our supply chain.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
94
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 6.0 Sound Governance
6.0 Sound Governance
To live up to the trust our clients place in us, it's critical that we operate with integrity and accountability at all times. As ESG risks evolve, we're adapting our policies and processes to ensure we continue to hold ourselves to the highest standards of sound governance.
19% of senior management* roles are held by women
39% of Board members are women
8 nationalities on the Board
42% of our Board (five members) were rated 3 (competent) out of 5 in ESG competence
Read on: 6.1 ESG risks and governance 6.2 Ethical protection and use of data 6.3 Labour and human rights 6.4 Professional integrity 6.5 Stakeholder dialogue
*Senior management includes Country Managing Partners, Sector Heads, Practice Heads, and the Exec.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
95
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 6.1 ESG risks and governance
6.1 ESG risks and governance
Our impacts
ESG impacts present major risks and opportunities to companies, and there's widespread recognition among leading global corporations that profit and purpose are interdependent. For businesses to be successful in the long term, they must also deliver social value. There's a growing expectation for all companies (including law firms) to make a positive contribution to society and the environment, and to report on their impact.
As a professional services organisation, our business is focused on delivering for our clients. Our client work is also the area where we have the biggest opportunity to drive positive social and environmental change. As with other sectors, advisors to business are under increasing pressure to account for the difference their advice makes in terms of sustainability. Integrating ESG risk governance into our client offering is therefore an issue of strategic importance to our firm.
Our materiality assessment found that our external stakeholders recognise the importance of ESG risk management to DLA Piper. The topic is our second-highest ranking material issue in terms of its potential financial impact on our firm, and the third-highest ranking topic in terms of its potential environmental and social impact. Our stakeholders also recognised that risk management is relevant to many of our other material ESG issues. During our conversations with stakeholders, the topic regularly came up in discussions around issues such as our Net Zero transition.
Like most companies, we're still at the early stages of integrating ESG risk management into our business strategy. Quantifying the social and environmental impact of client advice is not straightforward (although some models do exist). But the process is maturing, and we expect to make significant progress in this area in the coming years.
For more about our client advice on ESG issues, see section 3.1 Client advice on ESG.
Our commitments
To live up to our mission of making business better, we need to practice what we advise. This means ensuring that sustainability is core to how we run our business.
We're committed to fully integrating ESG considerations into our mainstream business risk management processes with a special focus on our approach to client work.
Like many organisations, we are in the process of exploring how our governance structures can best achieve this and where we need to make changes.
Actions we're taking
Revisiting the future of Boards
We're collaborating with The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) on a global research project to understand the shifts in governance and leadership that enable organisations to align business success with sustainability. The two-year project will combine existing academic and practitioner research with insights from board directors and key stakeholders across a range of jurisdictions in EMEA and APAC. The aim is to produce practical, evidence-based, internationally relevant recommendations to prepare businesses and their leadership for the future.
The initiative will explore how ESG has generated a need to reappraise the role, structure membership and operations of the board. It will examine four key dimensions:
Legal frameworks in a range of jurisdictions Materiality, purpose, strategy and governance indicators Board membership, individuals, structure and dynamics Stakeholder engagement (including investor interface)
As a credible partner in the research we are prepared to learn from its findings and bring these into our own organisation as part of our ongoing process to enhance our own ESG governance.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
96
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 6.1 ESG risks and governance
RATING OUR BOARD'S SUSTAINABILITY COMPETENCE
In early 2021, we carried out a review of the competence, knowledge and experience of our Board, including around sustainability topics. For environmental and social issues, the assessment rated all 12 of our current Board members at a level between 2 (some competence, knowledge and experience) and 3 (competent, knowledgeable and experienced). The average competence score of the whole Board in this area was 2.4.
In our assessment of sustainability competence,
58% of our board (seven members) were rated 2 (some competence).
42% of our board (five members) were rated 3 (competent).
Improving ESG data and its integration into business decision-making
We're taking steps to improve our ability to track, report, and act on our key ESG-related performance and risks. This is an ongoing journey, and we've made more progress in some of our material issues than others.
This year we launched a new environmental data management system. This is now allowing us to review our international environmental performance almost in real time, rather than just once a year. As we improve our processes for monthly data entry and quality checking, we'll soon be able to generate more insightful and accurate dashboards for internal stakeholders. For example, our senior leadership will be able to use the data to understand our progress towards our Net Zero target, while our operational leads will be able to identify opportunities for improvement.
We're also in the process of upgrading our HR and Finance systems, which will help us generate further insights and reporting on risks to key decision-makers.
To ensure we can escalate supply chain ESG risks effectively, we've set up a new Procurement Assurance Committee (PAC), along with a forthcoming supplier management platform. The PAC reviews supply chain ESG risks every month and has a reporting line to the Board Risk Committee.
As we improve our data availability and quality, we're also reviewing our reporting lines, to ensure that data and insights about our ESG risks and performance is captured in core business decision-making processes, and discussed in Exec, Risk Committee and Board meetings.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
97
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 6.1 ESG risks and governance
EMBEDDING CLIMATE CHANGE INTO
OUR RISK MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS
PLANNING PROCESSES
In 2021 we conducted a TCFD gap analysis and a materiality assessment of our climate risks. This involved mapping our potential climate-related risks and opportunities against our value chain, as well as assessing physical and transition risks and opportunities (including energy, supply chain and reputation). As part of the assessment, we also used sectoral guidance and trends analysis to identify risks that are material for impact modelling and built a roadmap for next steps to improve the depth of our scenario and risk analysis.
In late 2022 we will carry out a high-level scenario analysis. This will involve looking at a range of potential climate scenarios, and their related material risks and potential impacts for the firm. Following this we will choose three to five material risks and opportunities for a deep-dive risk modelling and financial impact analysis. When we have the results, we'll work to understand what mitigation and adaptation activities are already in place to address these risks, and where gaps remain and need to be addressed.
Our UK Managing Partner, Liam Cowell, took part in our pilot Carbon Literacy training in April and became certified as Carbon Literate.
What's next
We'll continue to improve our ESG data governance, integrating key elements of this into our governance agendas and processes.
One of our key priorities will be defining an approach for client intake, to ensure that our client work is aligned with our Net Zero transition goals and our wider ESG agenda.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
98
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 6.1 ESG risks and governance
"E SG carries a lot of risks for us, but it also brings great opportunities. We need to make sure that we have our own house in order and have a very clear idea on what is and isn't ok to do."
DLA Piper colleague during materiality assessment
"I can't think of one single request for a proposal recently that didn't include a request for us to set out our Sustainability and ESG credentials. Not being in step with our clients is clearly a risk."
DLA Piper colleague during materiality assessment
"E veryone has the right to legal representation, but does everyone have the right to DLA Piper representation? There is a big difference between those companies who are growth polluters but have a clear strategy to improve, and those who just want to keep the show on the road for as long as they can."
External stakeholder during materiality assessment
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
99
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 6.2 Ethical protection and use of data
6.2 Ethical protection and use of data
Our impacts
We're entrusted with highly sensitive and confidential information every day. In the 30 countries in which we operate, data protection laws exist to ensure that people's privacy rights are protected when data about them is processed or handled. Failure to use data ethically and comply with these obligations carries serious legal and reputational risks.
In our materiality assessment, our partners and employees ranked ethical protection and use of data as one of our top five material issues. Although stakeholders generally felt that this issue is well-managed by DLA Piper, and therefore a lower priority issue to address, they also stressed the importance of continuing to handle data carefully for the firm's ongoing reputation and business performance.
Our commitments
We're committed to complying with all relevant data protection laws and to treat personal data about our clients, our people and third parties with the outmost respect.
Our data protection framework contains formal controls to ensure we handle and protect data appropriately and with accountability. These include our privacy and supporting policies and notices, and our data protection and privacy impact assessment processes.
Our privacy policy sets out our commitment to protect individuals' privacy rights and how we handle and treat personal data processed by us. Our internal privacy policy sets out the obligations of our people to ensure that personal data is processed fairly, transparently and securely.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
100
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 6.2 Ethical protection and use of data
Actions we're taking
Data privacy
Composed of qualified lawyers and reporting to our General Counsel, our in-house privacy team is responsible for advising the business on data privacy and ensuring we meet our legal obligations. The team is supported by a network of privacy partners in each of our jurisdictions who advise on local law requirements where needed.
We view privacy compliance as a Board-level issue. The privacy team regularly reports to our Executive, Board and Risk Committee about on-going activities and data privacy related risks.
In 2021, the privacy team launched a data protection audit programme to identify and address any gaps in compliance. The audit is focusing on our European offices first, before being rolled out across out territories. The results are shared with the Office Management team and our Executive and Board.
We require our business partners to meet our own standards when processing personal data. Before we work with a third party, they must undergo an information security and privacy assessment. Data privacy and confidentiality training is mandatory for all our colleagues. In 2021/22 the completion rate for our Privacy and Data Protection training was 89%.
Information security
Our Information Security Management System sets out the standards we apply to ensure that we appropriately protect the sensitive and confidential data entrusted to us.
We have information security policies in place covering every stage of the information lifecycle, from creation and use to distribution and disposal. These policies apply to everyone who creates, distributes, accesses or manages information through the firm's business and personal computers and business or personal mobile devices. In addition, all our colleagues are required to undergo training in information security awareness.
As a law firm, maintaining confidentiality of our clients' information is of utmost importance and we train our people to understand our policies and how to manage this. Information barriers are put in place for very sensitive information.
We use state-of-the-art systems and recognised industry experts to help us identify and manage any security vulnerabilities. We constantly evaluate these systems and processes to ensure they remain up to date and line with the market.
We have formal processes in place to report and manage information security incidents. We maintain records of any information incidents to help us identify any gaps, trends or improvement opportunities.
Tracking our effectiveness
We are certified in ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus and therefore undergo regular external audits of our information management system. We align our Risk Framework to ISO 31000 for ERM and ISO27005 for information security risk management. We also use other good practice frameworks such as NIST, CIS, CSA and ISF.
Listening to our stakeholders
Our clients regularly audit us to gauge the effectiveness of our information security controls. If gaps are identified, we work with our clients to make the necessary improvements.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
101
Sustainability Report 21/22
> 6.3 Labour and human rights
6.3 Labour and human rights
Our impacts
As a professional services business, most of our employees are professionally qualified and highly skilled people, a significant proportion of whom are regulated by a professional regulatory body. As a result, our risk of human rights or labour violations is lower overall than in sectors such as manufacturing or fashion. However, we have a responsibility to ensure that we do not overlook the small proportion of our people who are employed in lower wage professions and in higher risk markets.
There's also a lower risk of labour and human rights violations in our supply chain, which consists of goods and services procured to enable our people to deliver legal services. However, there are certain areas of our supply chain that carry a potential risk of modern slavery in particular, suppliers operating in Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia, especially in labour-heavy sectors such as cleaning, catering, security, and transportation services.
Our commitments
We're committed to protecting the human rights of our employees and suppliers and upholding high working standards wherever we operate.
Our direct operations
We're dedicated to treating our employees in an equal, fair and dignified way through our values, people support networks, policies, guides and procedures. We ensure we follow all relevant employment laws and regulations and employment best practices in the countries where we operate.
We operate internal checks and measures such as employees being able to bring grievances or complaints if they experience unacceptable behaviour or conduct at work. We have also complied with the recent 2021 European Directive on Whistleblowing by operating an externally run whistleblowing hotline that allows our employees to raise concerns anonymously.
Because of the nature of a professional services industry, although our colleagues generally work long hours, we monitor working hours at team and manager level to ensure people do not work excessively, for prolonged periods of time.
Most of our employees are in professional roles and earn well above the minimum wage for their jurisdiction. We carry out an annual salary review to ensure our employees are paid fairly for their role and we also meet minimum wage requirements in each jurisdiction.
Our UK employees, who make up 35% of our international workforce, are covered by our UK Living Wage Foundation Living Wage Employer commitment, which states that no employee (or contractor working in our buildings) should earn below the living wage stipulated by the UK Living Wage Foundation. These rates are higher than the UK national minimum wage. Although apprentices and interns fall outside the scope of our Living Wage Foundation commitment, we ensure that these rate rules also apply to them.
All our employees have contracts of employment or employment agreements and work to terms and conditions that are competitive and favourable. In many cases, these exceed market norms.
We're committed to supporting the safety, health and wellbeing of our people. In May 2022 we recommitted to investing in our employees and their working experience, via our New Deal.
Read more about our health and wellbeing commitments in sections 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing and 2.3 Nurturing talent.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 6.3 Labour and human rights
Our supply chain
We're committed to ensuring decent working conditions in our supply chain.
In the UK we're a Living Wage Employer, which means we ensure that all contractors working on our premises (such as cleaning or security personnel), are paid at least the living wage determined by the Living Wage Foundation. We strongly discourage our suppliers from using zero-hours contracts. When they are used (for example, when a supplier's employee prefers it), we gain assurance that these contracts are not used in an exploitative way. We're updating our supplier meeting agendas to ensure that the use of zero-hours contracts is discussed during check-in meetings.
We require that all suppliers agree to DLA Piper's Supplier Code of Conduct. This prohibits suppliers, business partners and their subcontractors from using any form of forced labour. It also sets expectations around working hours, health and safety standards, and other ethical and human rights-related topics.
If a supplier is found to be in violation of the requirements of the Code, we expect them to inform us immediately or as soon as possible, and resolve the issue in a timely and sensitive manner. Failure to do so may lead to review or termination of our relationship with the supplier. We reserve the right to audit our suppliers in accordance with the Code.
We also require prospective suppliers with more than five employees to complete our due diligence questionnaire. The questionnaire includes checks that help us assess any risk of modern slavery that working with the supplier might carry. If the questionnaire review raises any red flags, we ask further questions and may choose to carry out a site visit or an audit, as necessary.
If a supplier is deemed to be at higher risk for labour, human rights and modern slavery violations within its operations or supply chain, we may include objectives related to performance in these areas in a supplier Performance Improvement Plan. These plans form part of the Total Supplier Relationship Manager (SRM) Framework and once fully embedded, the SRM will be charged with regularly checking in with the supplier, to ensure they are fulfilling their agreed objectives. If not, the SRM will be required to report the risk to the Procurement Assurance Committee (PAC), where risks are discussed in a multi-functional setting and can be escalated to the Board-level Risk Committee if needed.
Raising concerns
We want to ensure that anyone who wishes to make a complaint or raise a concern about wrongdoing at DLA Piper whether it's a colleague or a third party working with us can do so quickly, safely and in confidence.
Our policy and procedure for raising concerns is set out in our internal whistleblowing policy and whistleblowing procedure guidance document. Colleagues are advised to contact either our General Counsel Kate Salter or
our Global Co-Chair and Senior Partner Jon Hayes. They can do so either by following the procedure outlined in the guidance, or by using our externally run independent whistleblowing service (see more on the next page).
Internally, we also have a grievance procedure and an international bullying and harassment policy enabling anyone who has a complaint or a concern to raise it safely and securely with the International Human Resources Director. All complaints are investigated fully under well-established processes.
Our internal Employee Networks serve as additional channels of communication. These groups facilitate discussions on their specialist areas, which include women in law, disability, culture and ethnicity and LGBT+ and pass on feedback from those conversations to senior leaders, HR and managers within the firm.
76% of our people say that if they saw something wrong at work, they would feel comfortable reporting it.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 6.3 Labour and human rights
OUR POLICIES
Human Rights and Modern Slavery Policy: confirms our commitment to respect and support international human rights, in line with international standards. We also publish annual modern slavery statements in line with Australian and UK law. Read our Australian Modern Slavery Statement for 2021 here and our UK Modern Slavery Statement for 2021 here.
International Inclusion Guidelines: encourage all our people to value diversity and respect each other's individuality.
Ethics Policy: sets out the key ethical obligations of the firm in everything we do.
Whistleblowing Policy: a confidential mechanism for making complaints or raising concerns about suspected wrongdoing within the firm.
Incident Reporting Policy: a mechanism for reporting breaches of policies, procedures and legal or regulatory obligations, either by the firm or people within it.
Sustainable Procurement Policy: outlines the firm's approach to integrating Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations into our procurement process, in line with international principles.
Supplier Code of Conduct: sets out our expectations of suppliers providing goods and services to DLA Piper, aligned with international principles.
Grievance Procedure: allows employees to complain about matters relating to their employment.
Bullying and Harassment Policy: seeks to ensure that everyone at the firm, regardless of their role, is treated with dignity and respect at work.
International WorkSmart Flex: outlines our approach to flexible working and responsibilities in this area for both DLA Piper and our people.
Actions we're taking
Making it easier to raise concerns
In 2022, we updated our whistleblowing procedure by introducing an externally run, independent whistleblowing service. Any DLA Piper colleague or business partner can make a written report using the web-based service or can contact someone by phone at any time. The service includes the option to make the report anonymously.
Updating supplier relationship management framework
In 2021 we carried out an assessment to measure the importance of current and prospective suppliers to DLA Piper, and the potential risks they posed to the firm (including environmental and social risks). The results informed our new supplier management framework, which allows us to segment suppliers based on ESG risk and put in place risk mitigating measures, such as asking a supplier to improve certain practices or hit certain performance milestones. Our Procurement Assurance Committee monitors any supplier key risks that are identified, as well as regularly reviewing supplier policies and processes to ensure they remain fit for purpose. Read more in section 5.4 Green supply chain.
Modern Slavery law training
Since 2020, all employees involved in procurement receive annual mandatory training around the Modern Slavery Act. In 2022 we improved the quality of the training for procurement professionals, including topics such as the warning signs to look out for when interacting with suppliers. Because people across our business contribute to supplier procurement, we also created a second, shorter training session for all business services employees, which we'll roll out in the next year. Our goal is to eventually expand modern slavery training to all our people.
59% In 2022, 59% of relevant colleagues (out of 250 people) have completed Modern Slavery Act training.
Reconciliation Action Plan in Australia
In Australia, we work closely with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to nurture economic empowerment. This is a key element of our responsible business practice, and central to our Reconciliation Action Plan agenda being delivered across our Australian offices. Read more in our Australia Regional Highlights report.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 6.3 Labour and human rights
Tracking our effectiveness
Conducted several times a year, our employee engagement surveys are one of the main ways we assess the effectiveness of our people-related policies and practices. We regularly make improvements based on feedback we receive from these surveys.
In the UK, to help shape our actions in response to our engagement survey results, we carried out employee listening sessions to better understand the themes arising from the surveys and what makes the firm an attractive employer to our people.
We also gain feedback during exit interviews, and during our mid-year and end-of-year performance reviews. We've recently taken steps to improve the way we gather feedback at these times.
We ensure that any complaints received through our grievance mechanism, whistleblowing process, or through more informal channels are investigated fully and fairly, are documented and resolved.
Next steps
In the next financial year, we plan to review our Human Rights and Modern Slavery policy and conduct a review of systems and processes underpinning the policy, to ensure they continue to be fit for purpose. We will also onboard our new supplier management system and automate many of our risk assessment and due diligence processes for our suppliers.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 6.4 Professional integrity
6.4 Professional integrity
Our impacts
The success of our firm rests on the trust our clients, our business partners and our people place in us. To maintain that trust and uphold our reputation, it's essential that we act ethically and with integrity at all times. That includes complying with all relevant regulations, preventing conflicts of interest and ensuring fair competition practices.
Doing business with integrity is core to our corporate mission of making business better. We must also hold ourselves and our business partners accountable to the highest ethical standards.
Our commitments
We're committed to lead by example and act ethically and with integrity in every area of our business. We hold ourselves accountable to high standards of corporate governance. We have policies in place to ensure that we conduct our business in a lawful and ethical manner.
We manage our business in alignment with these policies, which are designed to facilitate compliance with our legal and regulatory obligations, and they apply to our people internationally.
We also expect our business partners to have similar policies in place that apply to all dealings with, on behalf of, or involving our firm.
Actions we're taking
Conduct and ethics
We have a range of policies and procedures in place related to our conduct and ethics. These policies help ensure that we act with integrity and accountability in all our business dealings and relationships, in compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements. They include our Anti-Bribery and Corruption Policy and Procedure, our Human Rights and Modern Slavery Policy, Conflict of Interest Policy, Ethics Policy and Sanctions Policy.
The Executive, and ultimately the Board, oversees the implementation of and compliance with our policies.
We ask our people to review these policies annually and confirm that their understanding and compliance.
Anti-money laundering
Our Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Policy aims to ensure that the firm is not used to launder proceeds from criminal activities. In each region or office, the firm has appointed a Money Laundering Reporting Officer. Our mandatory Anti-Money Laundering training had an 87% completion rate in 2021/22.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 6.4 Professional integrity
Preventing bribery and corruption
We will not directly or indirectly engage in bribery or corruption in any form and have a zero-tolerance approach to breach, whether it involves private individuals or public officials. We will never accept, solicit, agree to receive, promise, offer or give a bribe, facilitation payment, kickback or other improper payment. We have an anti-bribery and corruption policy setting out our standards and expectations in this area.
All our colleagues were required to undergo anti-corruption training as part of their induction, and then on an ad hoc basis depending on their role. From summer 2022, all our people are required to undergo refresher anti bribery and corruption training annually.
Raising concerns
We want to ensure that anyone who wishes to make a complaint or raise a concern about wrongdoing at DLA Piper can do so quickly, safely and in confidence. We have procedures in place to enable this, including a whistleblowing procedure and an internal grievance procedure.
In 2022, we updated our whistleblowing procedure by introducing an externally-run, independent whistleblowing service. Any DLA Piper colleague or business partner can file a written report using the web-based service or can contact someone by telephone at any time. The service includes the option to report anonymously.
Tax
Our approach to managing our tax affairs is consistent with our overall high standards of governance.
We structure our operations and processes to ensure regulatory compliance, and we support this with a programme of internal independent review. We meet our statutory obligations, including publishing our tax strategy and engage in open dialogue with the relevant tax authorities in all our jurisdictions.
The Board approves our tax strategy, with support and guidance from our tax committee, which is a subgroup of the audit committee.
Tracking our effectiveness
We periodically conduct risk assessments related to our key policies and commitments, including anti-corruption, anti-bribery, and anti-money laundering. Our anti-corruption compliance programme was most recently reviewed and updated in 2022. As issues may arise, we investigate them, and feed any lessons learned into updating our policies and procedures.
88% of colleagues have completed our ethics-related trainings to date (Anti-bribery and corruption and Anti-money laundering).
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 6.5 Stakeholder dialogue
6.5 Stakeholder dialogue
Our impacts
As a large, global law firm, we are connected with people, clients and business partners throughout the world. To drive sustainable change, it's vital that we use our connections, influence and resources to engage with our stakeholders.
Stakeholder engagement goes both ways. As well as reaching out to our stakeholders, it's equally important that we listen to their views and understand their experiences and priorities, so we can reflect this in the way we operate.
Our commitments and actions
We're committed to facilitating a two-way dialogue with our stakeholders, including our clients, our communities, our people, and our business partners.
With our clients we run client-listening sessions throughout the year to hear what our clients think about us as a firm and their experience of working with us. This feedback is integrated into how we deliver our services going forward.
We regularly seek feedback from our people, via our periodic employee engagement surveys, through dialogue facilitated by our employee networks, through our mid-year and end-of-year performance review processes, and through many other informal and ad hoc means.
Stakeholder feedback is also a key part of our pro bono and community partnership engagements. We systematically survey the participants of our programmes to understand their experiences of working with us and how we may be able to improve our support. This includes the Global Scholarships Programme, our Know Your Rights Programme, and our Head Start programmes. We also from time to time run evaluation and assessment exercises conducted by third parties to objectively understand our impact using latest best practice. We favour a co-creation approach with our key partners and welcome it if they challenge us on our approach.
We also regularly hold dialogues with our key suppliers and business partners, as part of our Total SRM framework. Most recently we've engaged a handful of key suppliers on their climate action plans.
We're active members of external groups working to improve companies' performance in areas like diversity and inclusion or health and wellbeing. Our participation in these initiatives often allows us to learn from others and get external feedback on our own performance.
We also engage in dialogue through a variety of sector-specific and cross-sector forums such as the Legal Sustainability Alliance, the Net Zero Lawyers Alliance, TNFD forum, PRIME, and many others. More details of these engagements are provided in the individual topical sections of this report.
MATERIALITY ASSESSMENT
In 2022 we completed our first materiality assessment, a comprehensive stakeholder engagement exercise including 22 external interviews, 24 internal interviews, 1,203 survey responses, and 10 focus groups. Read more about the process, findings, and next steps in section 1.2 Our materiality assessment.
LISTENING TO OUR PEOPLE
Our latest employee engagement survey was conducted in May 2022. Read more in section 2.0 Our People.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.0 Reporting on sustainability
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
Read on: 7.1 Scope, methodology and assurance 7.2 ESG metrics 7.3 Corporate governance 7.4 SASB Standards index 7.5 GRI Standards index 7.6 WEF Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics index 7.7 Memberships, commitments and awards 7.8 Further information
From right to left: Natalya Lozovaya, Senior ESG Manager, Responsible Business and Mariam Sheikh, Senior ESG Analyst, Responsible Business.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.1 Scope, methodology and assurance
7.1 Scope, methodology and assurance
We are continually improving our approach to reporting on our sustainability performance. This report goes one step further from our previous reporting by further aligning to the GRI Standards 2021 where possible, as well as to relevant indicators from SASB Standards and World Economic Forum's Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics. Our reporting is not yet where we'd like it to be, and we have plans to continue to improve over the coming reporting cycles.
Reporting boundaries
We primarily report on activities and performance of DLA Piper International, which excludes our offices in the US, our Brand Integrated Firms, and our partner firms in Africa. However, for some activities and performance, where data is available and helpful, we include these entities in our reporting. We've labelled clearly where the scope of data reported is beyond DLA Piper International.
Restatement of data
We've restated some data for previous years in this report. This may be slightly different from what may have been reported in previous years, due to updated methodologies or more accurate information. Where data has been restated from what had been previously reported, we have noted this in the `Basis of preparation and notes' section below each relevant table.
Basis of preparation
Where relevant, we've included notes on basis of preparation next to the data tables. These contain more details on how the data has been derived.
Assurance
Carbon Intelligence has carried out a limited assurance of our greenhouse gas emissions figures against ISO 14064-3 standard, and Corporate Citizenship has provided limited assurance of the non-environmental data sets against the GRI Principles of Accuracy, Clarity, Comparability, Timeliness and Verifiability, using the ISAE 3000 standard.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.2 ESG Metrics
7.2 ESG Metrics
DLA PIPER AT A GLANCE
Total number of people Number of people (International) Number of people (Brand Integrated Firms)
Women in organisation Business services of total population Fee earners of total population Average employee age Total number of new hires Voluntary employee turnover rate
2019/2020 7,213 6,245 968 58.0% 47.6%
2020/2021 7,415 6,547 868 58.0% 47.3%
2021/2022 7,682 6,719 963 58.0% 49.9%
52.4% 37.0
2,065 12.4%
52.7% 38.0
1,237 9.6%
50.1% 37.8
2,111 15.7%
Basis of preparation and notes
Number of people are given as headcount, where a person working part-time is counted as 1. Headcount figures are as of the last day of the financial year (April 30, 2022). Voluntary employee turnover rate includes retirement as a primary leaving reason.
OUR PEOPLE LEADERSHIP DIVERSITY Women in Senior Management Women on Executive Women on Board Number nationalities on the Executive Number nationalities on Board Board members under 30yo Board members 30-50yo Board members 51+yo
2019/2020
2020/2021 2021/2022
not yet measured not yet measured
30%
30%
31%
25%
44
19% 40% 38%
5
8 88
not yet measured not yet measured
0%
not yet measured not yet measured
31%
not yet measured not yet measured
69%
Basis of preparation and notes
Senior Management includes Country Managing Partners, Sector Heads, Practice Heads, and the Executive. Figures reflected are as of April 30 of each financial year (last day of the financial year). Restatement of data: Please note last year we reported in error that in 2020/21 and 2019/20 there were 33% women on the Executive. Both of these figures should have been 30%, and have been corrected in this report.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.2 ESG Metrics
GENDER DIVERSITY ACROSS ROLES 2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
% partners who are women
20.3%
20.5%
23.0%
% lawyers who are women
51.0%
52.0%
51.6%
% trainees who are women
56.0%
59.0%
63.7%
% paralegals who are women
69.0%
67.0%
66.5%
% women in Business Services
71.0%
62.0%
70.0%
Basis of preparation and notes
Partner figures reflected are as of May 1 of the following financial year. For example, the 2021/22 figure is as of May 1, 2022. All other roles reflect any career mobility through the last day of each financial year (i.e. April 30).
Restatement of data: Please note last year we reported slightly different figures for % partners who are women. This is because we have updated how we define the timeframe for reporting this figure, from promotions during the financial year, to promotions that happened as of May 1 of the financial year that follows. This is to ensure we are reporting the latest figures available.
CAREER PROGRESSION BY GENDER 2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
% women in new partner promotions
% women promoted to Legal Director / Senior Lead Lawyer
% women promoted to Senior Associate
% women promoted to Associate
21.7% 40.7%
53.6% 57.6%
33.3% 41.3%
46.7% 52.6%
44.1% 44.1%
53.3% 53.2%
Basis of preparation and notes
Partner figures reflected are as of May 1 of the following financial year. For example, the 2021/22 figure is as of May 1, 2022. All other roles reflect any career mobility through the last day of each financial year (i.e. April 30).
Restatement of data: Because we have updated the timeframe at which we take the % of women in new partner promotions, these figures have been restated from what was reported in last year's report.
EMPLOYEE RETENTION AFTER PARENTAL LEAVE, BY GENDER Parental leave return to work rate by gender Parental leave return to work rate for men Parental leave return to work rate for women Parental leave retention rate by gender Parental leave retention rate for men Parental leave retention rate for women
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
96% 35%
96% 98% 37% 27%
85% 32%
74% 85% 34% 25%
Basis of preparation and notes
The return to work rate is calculated by taking the total number of employees who returned to work after parental leave, and dividing it by number of employees who took parental leave in that period. Parental leave retention rate is calculated by taking the number of employees who returned to work and stayed during the financial year, and dividing it by the total number of employees who took parental leave.
CONTRACT TYPE AND EMPLOYMENT STATUS, BY GENDER Men's contract type % men working full time % men working part time Women's contract type % women working full time % women working part time
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
93% 7%
79% 21%
93% 94% 7% 6%
80% 82% 20% 18%
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.2 ESG Metrics
EMPLOYMENT STATUS
Men's employment status Men regular employees Men temporary employees Women's employment status Women regular employees Women temporary employees
2019/2020
2020/2021
2021/2022
91% 92% 91% 9% 8% 9%
91% 93% 91% 9% 7% 9%
Basis of preparation and notes
Regular employees are employees with a permanent employment contract, with no end date. Regular employees are part of the performance review and annual compensation processes. Temporary (fixed term) employees are those with a contract of employment which is due to end when a specified end date is reached, a specified event does or doesn't occur, or specified task has been completed.
NURTURING OUR TALENT Engagement Index score Engagement survey response rate Average hours of training per employee
2019/2020 2020/2021
68% 78% 7.29
72% 51% 10.9
2021/2022 74% 61% 9.85
Basis of preparation and notes
Our Engagement Index (EI) is formed by five survey questions and was first introduced in 2019. `Strongly agree' and `Agree' responses contribute to the EI score: 1. DLA Piper motivates me to do more than is required. 2. I feel motivated to do more than is required of me. 3. Given your choice, how long would you plan to continue working at DLA Piper? 4. I would recommend DLA Piper as a good place to work. 5. I feel proud to work at DLA Piper. Our EI score is generated in our October engagement survey annually. However, due to changes in our approach to surveys during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Engagement Index score for 2020/21 was generated from a survey conducted in April 2021.
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
2019/2020
2020/2021
Workers covered by an occupational health & safety management system
Employees and workers covered by externally audited OHS system1, 2
Number employees and workers covered by externally audited OHS system1
Work-related ill health
Number of cases of recordable work-related ill health (employees)
Main types of work-related ill health (employees)
Number of cases of recordable work-related ill health (on-site contractors)
Main types of work-related ill health (on-site contractors)
Number of fatalities as a result of work-related ill health (employees)
Number of fatalities as a result of work-related ill health (on-site contractors)
29.7% 2,259
0 n/a
0 n/a
0 0
30.6% 2,267
0 n/a
0 n/a
0 0
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
2021/2022 30.2% 2,317 0 n/a 0 n/a 0 0
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OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
2019/2020 2020/2021
2021/2022
Work-related injuries Number of recordable work-related injuries (employees) Main type of work-related injury (employees) Number of recordable work-related injuries (on-site contractors) Main type of work-related injury (on-site contractors) Rate of recordable work-related injuries (and on-site contractors)3
2.00 1.00
1.00
Slip and trip Scalding Slip and trip Allergic reaction in canteen
00
1.00
n/a n/a Struck by automated door
0.14 0.07
0.11
Number of high-consequence work-related injuries (excluding fatalities)(employees)
00
0
Number of high-consequence work-related injuries (excluding fatalities) (on-site contractors) Rate of high-consequence work-related injuries (excluding fatalities) (employees)4 Rate of high-consequence work-related injuries (excluding fatalities) (on-site contractors)4 Number of fatalities as a result of work-related injury (employees) Number of fatalities as a result of work-related injury (on-site contractors) Rate of fatalities as a result of work-related injury (employees)5 Rate of fatalities as a result of work-related injury (on-site contractor)5 Hours worked Number of hours worked6
00 00 00 00 00 00 00
14,363,500 15,058,100
0 0 0 0 0 0 0
17,659,400
OUR SOCIETY LEGAL PRO BONO
Total number of legal pro bono hours contributed
North America Europe, Middle East and Africa Asia Pacific
2019
2020
2021
206,336 227,508 197,512
115,113 66,047 25,176
133,739 73,830 19,939
103,531 71,466 22,514
Basis of preparation and notes
Legal pro bono hours include pro bono hours contributed by our US offices, our Brand Integrated Firms and our African Partner Firms. These hours are provided on a calendar year basis, rather than financial year basis.
FLAGSHIP COMMUNITY PROGRAMMES
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
Number Fellows supported by our Global Scholarships Programme
Number Scholars supported by our Head Start Programme
59 59
58
58 86 137
Basis of preparation and notes
1 Our OHS management system is certified against ISO 45001-2018 standards by NQA. This certification currently covers our UK offices only, but we plan international roll-out from 2022. 2 Please note, this % is slightly different from what was reported in last year's report, as a result of updating and making more accurate our data management systems. 3 Rate of recordable work-related injuries = (Number of recordable work-related injuries / Number of hours worked) x 1,000,000. 4 Rate of high-consequence work-related injuries (excluding fatalities) = (Number of high-consequence related injuries (excluding fatalities) / Number of hours worked) x 1,000,000. 5 Rate of fatalities as a result of work-related injury = (Number of fatalities as a result of work-related injury / Number of hours worked) x 1,000,000. 6 Number of hours worked is calculated by multiplying our total headcount by 50 hours per week by 46 weeks. This data incorporates our Brand Integrated Firms.
Basis of preparation and notes
Head Start figures include scholars supported by our UK, China, Australia, Kenya and New Zealand offices. As these are multi-year programmes, the number of participants between year is not deduplicated and may represent participants who also are listed in previous years.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.2 ESG Metrics
VOLUNTEERING AND FUNDRAISING
Total funds donated by DLA Piper [GBP]
Total funds raised by employees and partners [GBP]
Total community investment (cash, volunteering time, in-kind, management costs) [GBP]
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
125,261 109,830
158,787 117,561
156,583 79,130
Not yet measured
Not yet 24,208,106 measured
SOUND GOVERNANCE PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY
Completion rate for Anti Bribery and Corruption Training Completion rate for Anti Money Laundering Training Completion rate for Privacy and Data Protection Training
2021/2022 88% 87% 89%
Basis of preparation and notes
These figures represent a cumulative completion rate to date (leavers are removed), as of 15 June 2022.
MODERN SLAVERY ACT AND PROCUREMENT
Completion rate for Modern Slavery Act in Supply Chains Training Number people completed training / total enrolled
2020/2021 2021/2022
80% 102/128
59% 128/218
Basis of preparation and notes
We ask colleagues with procurement responsibilities or influence to take this training annually. In 2022 we expanded the roles in scope for the training.
OUR ENVIRONMENT
CARBON EMISSIONS
TOTAL SCOPE 1, 2 AND 3 CARBON EMISSIONS
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
% CHANGE
FROM BASELINE
Total GHG location based emissions (Scopes 1,2,3) [tCO2e]
Total GHG market based emissions (Scopes 1,2,3) [tCO2e]
132,167 129,908
89,616 87,860
71,088 69,034
-46% -47%
Basis of preparation and notes
The data for 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 emissions has been restated here and in the rest of the calculations in this section. Updated baseline emissions are 3% higher than what we reported last year, and 2020/21 emissions are 2% lower than what was reported last year. These slight changes are due to corrections applied to our original calculations as a result of verification and certification processes.
This data includes our Brand Integrated Firms.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.2 ESG Metrics
CARBON INTENSITY CARBON EMITTED PER PERSON
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
% CHANGE
FROM BASELINE
Scope 1 and 2 Location Based Emissions intensity [tCO2e / person]
Scope 1 and 2 Market-based Emissions intensity [tCO2e / person]
Scope 1,2,3 Location Based Emissions intensity [tCO2e / person]
Scope 1,2,3 Market Based Emissions intensity [tCO2e / person]
0.97 0.87
0.7
0.68 0.63 0.43
17.4 12.1 9.26
17.1 11.9 8.99
-28% -37% -47% -47%
Basis of preparation and notes
Carbon intensity calculations are made by using our total headcount figures (not a Full Time Equivalent figure), including Brand Integrated Firms.
CARBON EMISSIONS BROKEN DOWN BY SCOPE
Direct (Scope 1) GHG emissions (generated by the firm) [tCO2e]
Indirect (Scope 2) GHG location-based emissions (purchased by the firm) [tCO2e]
Indirect (Scope 2) GHG market-based emissions (purchased by the firm) [tCO2e]
Indirect (Scope 3) GHG emissions (generated outside the firm) [tCO2e]
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
% CHANGE
FROM BASELINE
1,411
1,568
1,523
8%
6,015
4,871
3,878
-36%
3,756
3,114
1,824
-51%
124,741
83,178
65,687
-47%
SCOPE 3 EMISSIONS BREAK-DOWN Purchased goods and services [tCO2e]
Capital goods [tCO2e] Fuel and energy-related activities (FERA) [tCO2e] Upstream transportation & distribution (courier/postage) [tCO2e] Business travel [tCO2e]
Employee commuting [tCO2e] Waste generated in operations [tCO2e] Water supply [tCO2e]
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022 % CHANGE FROM BASELINE
78,746
63,137
48,967
-38%
10,359 4,559 274
12,565 1,474 226
9,336 2,250
242
-10% -51% -11%
25,477 5,009 250 67
255 5,364
126 27
2,668 2,151
63 10
-90% -57% -75% -85%
Basis of preparation and notes
Although some of our Scope 3 emissions have dropped quite significantly since our baseline year, it's important to note that this is largely due to COVID-19-induced impacts rather than permanent changes we have made within our business. Our focus remains on ensuring that we do not return to pre-COVID-19 emissions levels by making meaningful changes in how we operate.
Please note, our emissions from purchased goods and services and from capital goods are estimated from spend, and the reduction in emissions stems from a lower spend and more accurate spend data, rather than any changes in our supply chain. We have plans underway to shift away from spend-based estimates and toward more accurate emissions calculations.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.2 ESG Metrics
COMMITMENT TO REDUCE EMISSIONS IN OUR SUPPLY CHAIN
% emissions from Purchased Goods and Services covered by a SBTi commitment
2021/2020 23.8%
Basis of preparation and notes
This figure represents the proportion of our Purchased Goods and Services spend that was with suppliers who have either committed to set or have set a carbon reduction target validated by the Science-based Targets initiative. This figure is accurate as of August 2022.
SCOPE 1 AND 2 LOCATION-BASED EMISSIONS INTENSITY BY COUNTRY OF OPERATION [tCO2E / PERSON] Australia
Austria Bahrain Belgium China Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Hong Kong Hungary Ireland Italy Japan Luxembourg Morocco Netherlands New Zealand Norway
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
1.79 1.59 1.22 0.98 1.02 0.81 3.35 2.90 3.05 0.54 0.54 0.42 1.42 1.33 1.22 1.21 0.97 0.58 0.43 0.38 0.18 0.29 0.33 0.19 0.10 0.08 0.08 0.86 0.79 0.33 1.06 0.79 0.73 0.20 0.17 0.15 0.93 0.07 1.86 0.43 0.43 0.33 1.00 0.94 1.08 0.70 0.64 0.46 1.50 1.33 1.90 1.14 2.31 2.13 0.48 0.32 0.14 0.04 0.03 0.04
% CHANGE FROM
BASELINE
-32%
-17% -9%
-22% -14% -52% -58% -33% -20% -61% -31% -26% 100% -24%
9% -34% 27% 87% -70% -11%
SCOPE 1 AND 2 LOCATION-BASED EMISSIONS INTENSITY BY COUNTRY OF OPERATION [tCO2E / PERSON]
Poland
2019/2020 0.51
2020/2021 2021/2022 0.34 0.29
Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Singapore Slovakia South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Thailand Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom
0.97 1.01 0.61 3.06 1.02 0.65 0.93 0.38 0.91 0.41 0.32 0.30 1.81 1.58 0.36 0.46 0.45 0.40 2.15 1.94 1.32 1.40 1.11 1.82 0.84 0.55 0.20 0.03 0.03 0.02 1.19 1.78 1.52 0.46 0.47 n/a* 1.07 0.91 0.48 1.42 1.13 0.98
% CHANGE FROM
BASELINE -43%
-37% -79%
-2% -25% -80% -13% -38% 31% -76% -52% 28%
-55% -31%
Basis of preparation and notes
* We no longer have presence in Ukraine as of 11 June 2021. Emissions intensity figures are calculated using a headcount figure, rather than Full Time Equivalent (FTE) figure.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.2 ESG Metrics
ENERGY CONSUMPTION WITHIN THE ORGANISATION Fuel from non-renewable sources [GJ] Mobile Gasoline/petrol [GJ]
Mobile Diesel [GJ]
Stationary Diesel [GJ] Natural gas [GJ] Fuel from renewable sources [GJ] Total Electricity [GJ] Electricity (grid mix) [GJ] Green electricity (certified) [GJ] Own Fleet Electric vehicles [GJ] Heating consumption [GJ] District heating [GJ] Self-generated electricity [GJ] Total energy consumption [GJ]
2019/2020
25,460 1,483 1,461 7.21
22,509 n/a
65,183 29,456 35,727
0 0 0 0 90,643
2020/2021 29,161
2021/2022
% CHANGE
FROM BASELINE
28,633
12%
929 824
500 638
2.62 27,730
n/a 53,993 25,926 28,067
0 0 0 0 83,155
2.62 27,168
n/a 48,790 15,996 32,793
2.33 6,457 6,457 17.50 83,901
-25% -7%
ENERGY INTENSITY ENERGY CONSUMED PER METER2 OF OFFICE SPACE
Energy intensity (floor area) [MWh/m]
Floor area [m]
2019/2020 2020/2021 2021/2022
0.144 174,817
0.132 174,817
0.127 183,671
% CHANGE FROM BASELINE
-12%
5%
WASTE MANAGEMENT Waste diverted from landfill [%] Total waste produced [t] Total weight of waste diverted from disposal [t] Hazardous waste by recovery operations [t] Non-hazardous waste by recovery operations [t] Total weight of waste directed to disposal [t] Hazardous waste by disposal operations [t] Non-hazardous waste by disposal operations [t]
2019/2020 62%
1,370 856 0 856 514 0 514
2020/2021 76% 513 388 0 388 125 0 125
2021/2022 90% 691 623 3 619 68 1 67
Basis of preparation and notes
Waste diverted from disposal is re-used, recycled, composted or used in energy generation
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.3 Corporate governance
7.3 Corporate governance
Our governance structure
DLA Piper is a global law firm operating through a number of separately constituted and regulated legal entities that provide legal and other client services in accordance with the relevant laws of the jurisdictions in which they respectively operate. Details of the different DLA Piper entities that provide legal services or other services to clients in respect of each country in which DLA Piper carries on business can be found here.
DLA Piper's business in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific is governed by DLA Piper International LLP (International). The members, partners or other principals of the various entities that provide client services in those regions are members of DLA Piper International LLP, unless they are prevented from doing so by regulatory restrictions. DLA Piper International LLP does not provide legal or other client services. You can read more about DLA Piper International LLP here.
DLA Piper's business in the US is governed by DLA Piper LLP (US). Read about this here.
DLA Piper International LLP and DLA Piper LLP (US) are members of DLA Piper Global (a Swiss verein). Its senior governance body is the Global Board, which comprises representatives from both LLPs.
This structure allows DLA Piper to be an industry leader at all levels locally, nationally and globally with clear leadership and robust governance arrangements in place to maintain consistency in our client offering and adherence to our methodologies, standards, protocols and guidelines throughout the firm. Our structure enables a deep understanding of local markets combined with the benefits of seamless operations and standards of excellence across multiple jurisdictions.
A formal matrix management structure including Group Heads, Sector Heads and Country Managing Partners enables us to deliver our firmwide strategy across the International firm.
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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> 7.3 Corporate governance
The International Board
Our International Board is the senior governance body of DLA Piper International LLP. Its role is to support the long-term success and sustainability of the firm, exercising strategic oversight and supporting and challenging management by taking the interests of our people, our clients and our wider communities into account in its decision-making.
Our Senior Partner is the Board Chair. As of 1 May 2022, Jon Hayes succeeded Andrew Darwin in this role. The Senior Partner is responsible for leading the International Board and creating the conditions for overall Board and individual Board member effectiveness. Jon Hayes will serve his four-year term until April 30, 2026.
The Members' Agreement defines the Board's role and requires it to represent Members (i.e. the partners in the firm) in making important strategic decisions relating to the business and to hold the Executive to account for the proper running of the business. The Board is ultimately responsible to the partners for the direction and management of the firm. It delegates the day-to-day management of the firm to the Executive.
The Board recognises the importance of achieving the correct balance between exercising proper oversight of the direction and management of the firm and becoming involved in the operational management of the firm (which is the Executive's responsibility). To maintain that balance, the Board focuses on:
ensuring the firm has an appropriate strategy and overseeing implementation of that strategy by the Executive;
monitoring the financial and operational performance of the firm, including its risk management policies and controls; and
ensuring the firm has the best possible executive leadership (including appropriate succession plans).
The Board has a number of committees to support its oversight and governance role, including an Audit Committee, Nomination Committee, Remuneration Committee and Risk Committee. Each committee has clear terms of reference approved by the Board which are reviewed at least annually. The Board receives written reports from the committee Chair after each meeting setting out any matters for escalation to the Board, matters considered by the relevant committee, key decisions and actions, risks, assurance and upcoming agenda items. Each committee is annually evaluated in a process led by the Board and Company Secretary.
The Board is responsible for oversight of strategies and policies, including those related to economic, environmental and social topics. The Board is responsible for setting the firm's strategy, vision and values and the Executive is responsible for developing these, engaging with relevant stakeholders, including the Board, during the process.
The Managing Partner reports at least half-yearly to the Board on progress against the firm's Sustainability and ESG strategy and ambitions.
Additionally, the Board holds two strategy sessions jointly with the Executive each year, which include coverage of Sustainability and ESG-related topics.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
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> 7.3 Corporate governance
Board composition
The LLP's Members' Agreement sets out the composition of the Board. The LLP's Members are responsible for electing the Senior Partner, the Managing Partner and the Elected Members on the Board. The Board has established a Nomination Committee to support and provide oversight of succession planning and election processes for the Board, and in so doing is supportive of the firm's diversity and inclusion goals and objectives. The Nomination Committee is also responsible for reviewing the membership of Board committees and making recommendations to the Board, taking into account the extent to which required skills, experience, diversity and other attributes are represented in each committee.
Board composition is diverse in terms of geography, and its members represent the International firm's geographical spread proportionately.
In addition to the Senior Partner, Managing Partner, Chief Financial Officer and Outside Directors (non-executive directors) permitted in the Members' Agreement, there are eight Elected Members. Two Elected Members are from offices in the UK, four are from offices based in EMEA (at least one of which must be from an office in the former CIS, CEE or the Middle East), one is from an office in Asia and one is from an office in Australia.
Elected Members are partners within the firm elected by partners. They are elected to serve a four-year term on the Board and may serve a maximum of two terms if elected again. The same applies to the Senior Partner and Managing Partner both of whom are elected by partners.
All elected positions on the Board have clear role mandates and descriptions setting out the role requirements and responsibilities and the personal attributes needed.
As of 30 April 2022, there were 13 members on the Board, comprising eight different nationalities and five women.
Independent Board members
While there is no regulatory or legal requirement for us to have independent Board members, our view is that it strengthens our corporate governance arrangements and reflects good practice.
Our Board is enhanced by the extensive experience and skillset of our two independent Board members: Ana Garcia Fau (based in Spain) and Lou Pagnutti (based in Canada). They are completely independent from the day-to-day business of the firm. They bring rigour, cognitive diversity and challenge to boardroom discussions and decision-making through their diverse business experiences.
We consider independent Board member candidates on merit and against objective criteria. These criteria include evaluating candidates' experience across a range of topics including economic, environmental and social topics.
Board advisors
The Board is supported by the General Counsel and a Board Secretary.
Board performance
The Board is committed to continuous improvement and considers its own performance and governance and the extent to which it is successfully fulfilling the important role delegated to it by partners as well as its responsibilities to wider stakeholders including employees, clients, suppliers and communities.
In early 2021, the Board carried out a formal assessment of its skills, experience and knowledge across a range of areas (including Sustainability and ESG topics) considered as relevant and important for the effective conduct of the Board. This exercise resulted in a documented matrix setting out the Board's skills, knowledge and experience. This matrix is used to shape the Board's formalised development and training programme in all areas, including those related to Sustainability and ESG.
Background reports are submitted throughout the year on various Sustainability and ESG related matters and presented by subject matter experts to enhance and strengthen Board knowledge and insight into Sustainability and ESG matters.
0.0 Introduction
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2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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> 7.3 Corporate governance
Internal controls and risk management
The Members' Agreement requires the Board to ensure there is a sound system of internal control and risk management, to approve the strategic risk register and to monitor the firm's main risks.
Additionally, the Members' Agreement establishes the Risk Committee as a standing committee of the Board and sets out its core responsibilities, which are supplemented with Board-approved terms of reference. The Risk Committee receives reports at each meeting from both the Director of Risk and the General Counsel on the robustness and effectiveness of the firm's risk management and internal control framework.
The Risk Committee reports formally to the Board after each meeting. The Risk Committee may requisition internal audit to perform risk and assurance reviews on specific areas of concern or emerging risks as deemed necessary. In November 2020, the Board approved a new documented Enterprise Risk Management Approach Framework setting out how risks are to be managed on an enterprise-wide basis across the firm. The Risk Committee is responsible for reviewing management's assessment of our principal risks.
The International Executive
The Executive Committee (the Executive) is responsible for the day-to-day management of DLA Piper International. The firm's operations are based on a matrix, focused on building and nurturing the firm's strong geographic foundation as well as delivering consistent, high-quality services to our clients, dedicated to their sectors. The International Board is responsible for approving appointments to the Executive.
Executive composition
The Executive is currently composed of ten senior leaders, four of whom are women, and five different nationalities.
The Managing Partner, Simon Levine leads the Executive and began his first term as Managing Partner in January 2015.
The firm's practice groups are led by the Managing Director Practice Groups.
The firm's sectors are led by the Managing Director Clients and Sectors.
The firm's regions are led by Joint Managing Directors for UK and Europe and the Managing Director for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.
The Chief Financial Officer leads the firm's Finance team and is responsible for the management of the firm's financial reporting, budgeting, tax and treasury functions.
The Chief Operating Officer leads and coordinates our Business Services, which comprise Business Service Delivery, Human Resources, Marketing and Business Development, Information Technology and Property and Workplace.
The General Counsel advises the firm on its legal, regulatory, ethical and governance obligations.
The Managing Director, Sustainability and Resilience leads the firm's Sustainability and ESG, Responsible Business and Pro Bono, Law& and Risk areas.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.3 Corporate governance
Sustainability and ESG management structure and governance
The Board is responsible for approving the firmwide strategy, which incorporates Sustainability and ESG elements, such as approving the firm's carbon reduction target and diversity and inclusion goals in 2021.
The Risk Committee is a standing committee of the Board and is responsible for overseeing the implementation of our firmwide approach to managing risk, including Sustainability and ESG risk. The risk committee receives reports at each meeting from both the Director of Risk and the General Counsel on the robustness and effectiveness of the firm's risk management and internal control framework.
The Executive is responsible for decision-making on economic, environmental and social topics. The Executive is responsible for managing economic and Sustainability and ESG impacts, risks and opportunities and the Managing Partner reports regularly to the Board on these matters. The Managing Partner's reporting to the Board includes insights from engagement and consultation with various stakeholders, including our people, partners, clients and suppliers.
Responsibility for the component parts of our Sustainability and ESG strategy is shared between members of the Executive, all of whom report to the Managing Partner. The role of Managing Director, Sustainability and Resilience has responsibility for coordinating and intensifying actions across Sustainability and ESG, Responsible Business and Pro Bono, Law& and Risk.
Group Heads, Sector Heads and Country Managing Partners are responsible for the implementation of the Sustainability and ESG strategy within their respective areas of responsibility and driving performance. The firm has established a Sustainability and ESG Steering Committee that oversees implementation of the Sustainability and ESG strategy across the firm's locations, practice groups and sectors. Members are drawn from across the firm's geographical spread and include Sustainability and ESG subject matter experts. Its membership includes senior partners and operational leads and brings together representatives of our Boardroom Advisory Service, Radical Change team, Responsible Business function and marketing, as well as partners from the UK, EMEA, Africa and Asia Pacific. The Sustainability and ESG Steering Committee reports to the Executive.
DLA Piper focuses on managing Sustainability and ESG impacts across several key sustainability areas, and the strategy for each of these areas is managed by various working groups.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.4 SASB Standards index
7.4 SASB Standards index
SASB STANDARDS PROFESSIONAL & COMMERCIAL SERVICES
SUSTAINABILITY DISCLOSURE TOPIC
ACCOUNTING METRIC
Description of approach to identifying and addressing data security risks
CATEGORY
Discussion and Analysis
CODE
DLA PIPER RESPONSE
SV-PS-230a.1.
Our Information Security Management System sets out the standards we apply to ensure that we appropriately protect the sensitive and confidential data entrusted to us. We have information security policies in place covering every stage of the information lifecycle, from creation and use to distribution and disposal.
We use state-of-the-art systems and recognised industry experts to help us identify and manage any security vulnerabilities and are certified in ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus.
For a full description, please refer to section 6.2 Ethical protection and use of data of the DLA Piper Sustainability Report 2021/22.
Data Security
Description of policies and practices
Quantitative
relating to collection, usage, and retention
of customer information
SV-PS-230a.2
We're committed to complying with all relevant data protection laws and to treat personal data about our clients, our people and third parties with the outmost respect. Our data protection framework contains formal controls to ensure we handle and protect data appropriately and with accountability. These include our privacy and supporting policies and notices, and our data protection and privacy impact assessment processes. Our privacy policy sets out our commitment to protect individuals' privacy rights and how we handle and treat personal data processed by us. Our internal privacy policy sets out the obligations of our people to ensure that personal data is processed fairly, transparently and securely.
For a full description, please refer to section 6.2 Ethical protection and use of data of the DLA Piper Sustainability Report 2021/22.
(1) Number of data breaches, (2) percentage involving customers' confidential business information (CBI) or personally identifiable information (PII), (3) number of customers affected
Quantitative
SV-PS-230a.3
DLA Piper does not currently disclose this data.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.4 SASB Standards index
SASB STANDARDS - PROFESSIONAL & COMMERCIAL SERVICES (CONTINUED)
SUSTAINABILITY DISCLOSURE TOPIC
ACCOUNTING METRIC
Percentage of gender and racial/ethnic group representation for (1) executive management; and (2) all other employees
CATEGORY CODE
DLA PIPER RESPONSE
Quantitative
SV-PS-330a.1.
Please refer to section 7.2 ESG Metrics of the DLA Piper Sustainability Report 2021/22 for the percentages of female employees in executive management and all other employees.
Please see section 2.1 Diversity and inclusion of DLA Piper Sustainability Report 2021/22 for an overview of our diversity and inclusion policies and programmes.
DLA Piper does not currently disclose this data for racial/ethnic group representation, however, we have plans to begin reporting this in the future.
Workforce Diversity
& Engagement
(1) Voluntary; and
Quantitative
(2) involuntary turnover ratefor employees
SV-PS-330a.2
Please refer to section 7.2 ESG Metrics of the DLA Piper Sustainability Report 2021/22 for voluntary turnover rates. Involuntary turnover rates are not currently disclosed.
Employee engagement as a percentage
Quantitative
SV-PS-330a.3
DLA Piper Engagement Index Score (21/22): 74%
For more details on the methodology used for calculating the Engagement Index, please refer to section 7.2 ESG Metrics of the DLA Piper Sustainability Report 2021/22. For other survey findings, including regional-level break-downs, please see section 2.0 Our People in the DLA Piper Sustainability Report 2021/22, and our Regional Highlights 2021/22.
Professional Integrity
Professional Integrity
Description of approach to ensuring professional integrity
Total amount of monetary losses as a result of legal proceedings associated with professional integrity
Discussion and Analysis
SV-PS-510a.1
We have a range of policies and procedures in place related to our conduct and ethics. These policies help ensure that we act with integrity and accountability in all our business dealings and relationships, in compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements. They include our Anti-Bribery and Corruption Policy and Procedure, our Human Rights and Modern Slavery Policy, Conflict of Interest Policy, Ethics Policy and Sanctions Policy.
For a full description, please refer to section 6.4 Professional integrity of the DLA Piper Sustainability Report 2021/22.
Quantitative SV-PS-510a.2 DLA Piper does not currently disclose this data.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.5 GRI Standards Index
7.5 GRI Standards Index
DLA Piper has reported the information cited in this GRI content index for the period May 1st 2021 to April 30th 2022 with reference to the GRI Standards (GRI 1: Foundation 2021). All topic standards disclosed in this index reflect the firm's material topics.
THE ORGANISATION AND ITS REPORTING PRACTICES
GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
GENERAL DISCLOSURES
2-1: Organisational Details 0.1 About us
GRI 2: General Disclosures
2-2: Entities included in the organization's sustainability reporting
0.2 About this report
2-3: Reporting period,
0.2 About this report
frequency and contact point
Follow link to our website for full list of our entities
2-4: Restatements of information
2-5: External Assurance
7.1 Scope, methodology Wherever data is restated in our
and assurance
ESG Metrics tables, we've noted
this under each table
7.1 Scope, methodology and assurance
Download our assurance statements here: GHG figures assurance Section 7.2 ESG Metrics assurance
(M)= Material disclosure for DLA Piper.
ACTIVITIES AND WORKERS GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
GENERAL DISCLOSURES
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
GRI 2: General Disclosures
2-6: Activities, value chain and other business relationships
0.1 About us 6.4 Professional Integrity 3.0 Our Clients 6.4 Professional Integrity 5.4 Green supply chain
2-7: Employees
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our People
2-8: Workers who are Not disclosed not employees
As a law firm, the proportion of our people who are not employees or partners is not significant, and we don't yet report on this.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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GOVERNANCE GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE GENERAL DISCLOSURES
2-9: Governance structure and composition
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
7.3 Corporate Governance
2-10: Nomination and selection of the highest governance body 7.3 Corporate Governance
2-11: Chair of the highest governance body
2-12: Role of the highest governance body in overseeing the management of impacts
2-13: Delegation of responsibility for managing impacts
GRI 2: General Disclosures
2-14: Role of the highest governance body in sustainability reporting
2-15: Conflicts of interest
2-16: Communication of critical concerns
7.3 Corporate Governance 7.3 Corporate Governance
7.3 Corporate Governance 7.3 Corporate Governance
6.4 Professional Integrity
As part of our commitment to uphold the highest level of professional integrity, DLA Piper complies with all relevant regulations, preventing conflicts of interest and ensuring fair competition practices. The firm's highest governance entity (the International Board) comprises 13 members, 10 of whom are elected partners, one is the Chief Financial Officer and the other two are independent non-executives. All partners require Board approval for any external appointments (so as to avoid or mitigate any conflicts of interest) and so the elected partners generally do not have any external appointments which could create conflicts of interest. The firm maintains a register of all such appointments to ensure transparency.
7.3 Corporate Governance
2-17: Collective knowledge of the highest governance body
7.3 Corporate Governance
2-18: Evaluation of the performance of the highest governance body
7.3 Corporate Governance
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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GOVERNANCE (CONTINUED) GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE GENERAL DISCLOSURES
2-19: Remuneration policies
2-20: Process to determine remuneration GRI 2: General Disclosures
2-21: Annual total compensation ratio
LOCATION Not disclosed
Not disclosed
Not disclosed
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
As a large partnership, the Members' Agreement and the Profit Sharing Regulations set out the process for determining the profit shares for partners, salaries for Member Equivalents and awards from the Bonus Pool. We are an international firm and in most jurisdictions where we have a presence, partners are self-employed and therefore are responsible for their own retirement benefits. (This aligns with what the majority of other firms do in local markets.) Aside from profitability, there are many factors which are taken into account in determining the Board and Executive remuneration both in relation to performance against roles and responsibilities/objectives and overall contribution. Performance objectives are set according to the respective roles and responsibilities of the individuals concerned but will invariably include factors related to the implementation of the ESG strategy of the firm.
As a large partnership, the Members' Agreement and the Profit Sharing Regulations set out the process for determining the profit shares for partners, salaries for Member Equivalents and awards from the Bonus Pool. The Executive formulates the remuneration for all partners except for the senior management team and the Remuneration Committee (which includes 2 NEDs independent from the firm) formulates the remuneration for Senior Management. Ultimately, the Board sets the remuneration for all partners, which in turn is subject to a partner vote. (The Board does not review the individual recommendations of all partners but instead ensures the process followed by the Executive to arrive at them was fairly and consistently applied and consistent with the members agreement and profit sharing regulations.) The process is highly consultative, and includes partners making individual submissions on their overall performance and contribution in the preceding year and then appropriate review and consideration by management before submission to the Executive and review by the Board. There is also an appeal process which is administered and decided upon by RemCom.
We don't currently calculate this metric. Our partners are the highest paid individuals within the organisation, however they are not employees but rather owners of the company. Most of our employees are in professional roles and earn well above the minimum wage for their jurisdiction. We carry out an annual salary review to ensure our employees are paid fairly for their role and we also meet minimum wage requirements in each jurisdiction.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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STRATEGY, POLICIES AND PRACTICES GRI DISCLOSURE STANDARD
GENERAL DISCLOSURES
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
GRI 2: General Disclosures
2-22: Statement on sustainable 0.3 A word from our
development strategy
senior leaders
2-23: Policy commitments
6.3 Labour and human rights
5.2 Our operational footprint
Also see our Modern Slavery statement
2-24: Embedding policy commitments
See `Governance' box in each of the key materiality topic chapters for a description of how policy commitments are embedded within the organisation
2-25: Processes to remediate negative impacts
6.3 Labour and human rights
2-26: Mechanisms for seeking 6.3 Labour and
advice and raising concerns
human rights
2-27: Compliance with laws and regulations
6.4 Professional Integrity
2-28: Membership associations 7.5 Memberships, commitments and awards
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
GENERAL DISCLOSURES
GRI 2: General Disclosures
2-29: Approach to stakeholder engagement 6.5 Stakeholder dialogue
2-30: Collective bargaining agreements
2.0 Our people
6.3 Labour and human rights
DLA Piper is a global law firm and does not have collective bargaining agreements with its employees. However working conditions and terms of employment for all employees are based on industry good practice and in many cases are above the prevailing market rate. You can read more about our culture, working conditions, and benefits in chapter 2.0 Our people and 6.3 Labour and human rights.
MATERIAL TOPICS GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
GENERAL DISCLOSURES
3-1: Process to determine material topics 3-2: List of material topics
1.2 Our materiality assessment 1.2 Our materiality assessment
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
GRI 3: Management Approach
3-3: Management of material topics
Each section of the Sustainability Report covers one of the 15 material issues. Each section, as far as relevant, discusses the actual and potential impacts, describes policies and commitments, describes actions taken, describes effectiveness tracking, and covers stakeholder engagement.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE
GRI STANDARD
DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
201-1: Direct economic value generated and distributed
GRI 201: Economic Performance
201-2: Financial implications and other risks and opportunities due to climate change
201-3 : Defined benefit plan obligations and other retirement plans
201-4 Financial assistance received from government
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
Refer to our Full Accounts on Companies House website
The following figures are for FY20/21, as at the time of publishing this report these are the most recent figures publicly available: Direct economic value generated and distributed: Revenue: GBP 1,164.5m Operating costs: GBP 727.5m Employee wages and benefits: GBP 351.2m Payments to providers of capital: GBP 1.5m (interest payable on bank loans) Payments to government: GBP 2.8m (tax) Community investment: 24,208,106 ((cash, volunteering time, in-kind, management costs) Financial assistance received from the government: GBP 2.1m (COVID-19 related government grants) GBP 1.0m (other COVID-19 related government assistance, such as income tax relief and deductions)
1.3 Our sustainability strategy and roadmap
5.1 Net Zero transition
2.3 Nurturing talent
DLA Piper provides benefits and retirement packages to its employees based on the best market rates available. These offerings will differ according to jurisdiction.
Refer to our Full Accounts on Companies House website
The following figures are for FY20/21, as at the time of publishing this report these are the most recent figures publicly available: Financial assistance received from the government: GBP 2.1m (COVID-19 related government grants) GBP 1.0m (other COVID-19 related government assistance, such as income tax relief and deductions)
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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ANTI-CORRUPTION
GRI STANDARD
DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 205: Anti Corruption
205-1: Operations assessed for risks related to corruption
205-2: Communication and training about anti-corruption policies and procedures
205-3: Confirmed incidents of corruption and actions taken
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
6.3 Labour and human rights
6.3 Labour and human rights 6.4 Professional Integrity
6.3 Labour and human rights
DLA Piper has established systems in place that enable secure and robust reporting of incidents. For this reporting period, no incidents have been disclosed.
ANTI-COMPETITIVE BEHAVIOR GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 206: Anti-competitive behavior
206-1: Legal actions for anti-competitive behavior, anti-trust, and monopoly practices
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
For this reporting period, no incidents of legal action have occurred.
TAX GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 207: Tax
207-1: Approach to tax
207-2: Tax governance, control, and risk management
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
6.4 Professional Integrity 6.4 Professional Integrity
ENERGY GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
ENERGY
302-1: Energy consumption within the organization 302-3: Energy intensity GRI 302: Energy
302-4: Reduction of energy consumption
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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EMISSIONS GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
GRI 305: Emissions
305-1: Direct (Scope 1) GHG emissions
305-2: Energy indirect (Scope 2) GHG emissions
305-3: Other indirect (Scope 3) GHG emissions
305-4: GHG emissions intensity
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment
305-5: Reduction of GHG emissions 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment
WASTE GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
306-1: Waste generation and significant waste-related impacts
306-2: Management of significant waste-related impacts
GRI 306: Waste 306-3: Waste generated
306-4: Waste diverted from disposal
306-5: Waste directed to disposal
5.3 Circular economy 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment 5.3 Circular economy
5.3 Circular economy 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment 5.3 Circular economy 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment 5.3 Circular economy 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment
SUPPLIER ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 308: Supplier Environmental Assessment
308-1: New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria
5.4 Green supply chain
We are currently putting in place IT solutions to be able to track this automatically and expect to be able to report on this in the coming reporting periods.
EMPLOYMENT
GRI STANDARD
DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 401: Employment
401-1: New employee hires and employee turnover 401-2: Benefits provided to full-time employees that are not provided to temporary or part-time employees
401-3: Parental leave
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our People
2.1 Diversity and inclusion 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing 2.3 Nurturing talent
2.3 Nurturing talent 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our People
There are no benefits provided to full-time employees that are not also provided to part-time and temporary employees.
Please refer to the Employee retention after parental leave metrics table on page 112 which details retention rates by gender.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
GRI STANDARD
DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
MATERIAL TOPICS
403-1: Occupational health and safety management system
403-2: Hazard identification, risk assessment, and incident investigation
403-3: Occupational health services
GRI 403: Occupational Health and Safety
403-4: Worker participation, consultation, and communication on occupational health and safety
403-5: Worker training on occupational Health and Safety
403-6: Promotion of worker health
403-7: Prevention and mitigation of occupational health and safety impacts directly linked by business relationships
403-8: Workers covered by an occupational health and safety management system
403-9: Work-related injuries 403-10: Work-related ill health
2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
2.2 Employee health and wellbeing 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
2.2 Employee health and wellbeing 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
DLA Piper is certified against ISO 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems) in the UK, and we plan to roll out certification to other international offices.
2.2 Employee health and wellbeing 5.2 Operational footprint
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our People
DLA Piper is certified against ISO 45001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems) in the UK, and we plan to roll out certification to other international offices.
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our People
TRAINING AND EDUCATION
GRI STANDARD
DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 404: Training and Education
404-1: Average hours of training per year per employee
7.2 ESG Metrics > Our People
404-2: Programs for upgrading employee skills and transition assistance programs
2.3 Nurturing talent
404-3: Percentage of employees receiving regular performance and career development reviews
Not disclosed
DIVERSITY AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
GRI STANDARD
DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 405: Diversity and Equal Opportunity
405-1: Diversity of governance 7.2 ESG Metrics
bodies and employees
> Our People
405-2: Ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men
Not disclosed
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
DLA Piper has systems in place to record employee performance data and will provide baseline reporting on this area from the next reporting cycle.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
Please see our Regional Highlights report for our gender pay gap reporting for UK and Australia.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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NON-DISCRIMINATION GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 406: Non-discrimination
406-1: Incidents of discrimination and corrective actions taken
Not disclosed
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
DLA Piper has established systems in place that enable secure and robust reporting of incidents, however we do not currently disclose this information publicly.
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOUR GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 409: Forced or compulsory labour
409-1: Operations and suppliers at significant risk for incidents of forced or compulsory labour
6.3 Labour and Human Rights
Please see DLA Piper's Modern Slavery statement
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
Please see our Supplier Code of Conduct
CHILD LABOUR GRI STANDARD
DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
GRI 408: Child Labour
408-1: Operations and suppliers at significant risk for incidents of child labour
6.3 Labour and Human Rights
Please see DLA Piper's Modern Slavery statement
Please see our Supplier Code of Conduct
LOCAL COMMUNITIES GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 413: Local Communities
413-1: Operations with local community engagement, impact assessments, and development programs
4.1 Social Impact
We want to support local economies and communities wherever we operate. With DLA Piper offices in many developing countries, we are committed to supporting local economic growth as well as access to education. One of the ways in which we do this is through the Head Start programme which supports talented young people who face social, economic or cultural barriers to entering and succeeding in the legal profession.
Further information on the firm's approach to social impact is detailed on page 59.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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SUPPLIER SOCIAL ASSESSMENT GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 414: Supplier Social Assessment
414-1: New suppliers that were screened using social criteria
5.4 Green supply chain
6.3 Labour and human rights
We are currently putting in place IT solutions to be able to track this automatically and expect to be able to report on this in the coming reporting periods.
CUSTOMER PRIVACY GRI STANDARD DISCLOSURE
MATERIAL TOPICS
GRI 418: Customer Privacy
418-1: Substantiated complaints concerning breaches of customer privacy and losses of customer data
LOCATION
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND OMISSIONS
6.2 Ethical protection and use of data
DLA Piper does not currently disclose this data.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.6 WEF Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics index
7.6 WEF Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics index
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM METRICS CORE METRICS AND DISCLOSURES (SEPTEMBER 2020)
PILLAR
THEME
METRICS AND DISCLOSURES
DLA PIPER RESPONSE AND COMMENTARY
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT SECTION / PAGE REFERENCE
Governance
Governing purpose
Governance
Quality of governing body
Governance
Stakeholder engagement
Setting purpose
The company's stated purpose, as the expression of the means by which a business proposes solutions to economic, environmental and social issues. Corporate purpose should create value for all stakeholders, including shareholders.
Governance body composition
Composition of the highest governance body and its committees by: competencies relating to economic, environmental and social topics; executive or non-executive; independence; tenure on the governance body; number of each individual's other significant positions and commitments, and the nature of the commitments; gender; membership of underrepresented social groups; stakeholder representation.
Material issues impacting stakeholders
A list of the topics that are material to key stakeholders and the company, how the topics were identified and how the stakeholders were engaged.
DLA Piper is committed to making business better by helping clients transition to, and thrive in, a more sustainable future. This means playing our part in helping businesses realise the added value that comes with the social and environmental transformation that is underway, and supporting them as they shift to new strategies and even business models, which add planetary and societal benefits as well as commercial gain.
We are actively exploring how we can fully live up to our purpose in all parts of our business, and the 21/22 Sustainability Report discusses this in-depth.
In early 2021, we carried out a review of the competence, knowledge and experience of our Board, including around sustainability topics. For environmental and social issues, the assessment rated all 12 of our current Board members at a level between 2 (some competence, knowledge and experience) and 3 (competent, knowledgeable and experienced). The average competence score of the whole Board in this area was 2.4.
Further information on our governance body composition can be found in our Sustainability Report.
Refer to 6.0 Sound Governance > 6.1 ESG risks and governance
Refer to 7.0 Reporting on sustainability > 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our People > Leadership diversity
We carried out a double-materiality assessment in 2021-22, which identified 15 material issues, prioritised by order of importance both in terms of impact on society and financial impact on our firm. Globally, our top six material issues are: 1. Net Zero transition 2. Diversity, mobility and inclusion 3. ESG risks and governance oversight 4. Client advice on environment 5. Employee health and wellbeing 6. Nurturing talent
Refer to 1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper section > 1.2 Our Materiality Assessment
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM METRICS CORE METRICS AND DISCLOSURES (SEPTEMBER 2020) (CONTINUED)
PILLAR
THEME
METRICS AND DISCLOSURES
DLA PIPER RESPONSE AND COMMENTARY
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT SECTION / PAGE REFERENCE
Governance Governance Governance
Ethical behaviour
Ethical behaviour
Risk and opportunity oversight
Anti-corruption
Total percentage of governance body members, employees and business partners who have received training on the organization's anti-corruption policies and procedures, broken down by region.
Total number and nature of incidents of corruption confirmed during the current year, but related to previous years
Total number and nature of incidents of corruption confirmed during the current year, related to this year.
Discussion of initiatives and stakeholder engagement to improve the broader operating environment and culture, in order to combat corruption.
88% of all our people have completed the firm's Anti Bribery and Corruption training, and 87% of our people have completed the firm's Anti Money Laundering Training.
We are in continually improving our data management methods and hope to report break-downs of training statistics by governance body members vs. Employees in the future, broken down by region.
We currently do not disclose number and nature of incidents of corruption for current or previous years.
We discuss initiatives and stakeholder engagement for combating corruption in section 6.4 Professional integrity.
Protected ethics advice and reporting mechanisms
A description of internal and external mechanisms for:
Seeking advice about ethical and lawful behaviour and organizational integrity; and
Reporting concerns about unethical or unlawful behaviour and lack of organizational integrity
We have a range of policies and procedures in place related to our conduct and ethics. These policies help ensure that we act with integrity and accountability in all our business dealings and relationships, in compliance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements. They include our Anti-Bribery and Corruption Policy and Procedure, our Human Rights and Modern Slavery Policy, Conflict of Interest Policy, Ethics Policy and Sanctions Policy.
In 2022, we updated our whistleblowing procedure by introducing an externally run, independent whistleblowing service. Any DLA Piper colleague or business partner can make a written report using the web-based service or can contact someone by phone at any time. The service includes the option to make the report anonymously.
Integrating risk and opportunity into business process
Company risk factor and opportunity disclosures that clearly identify the principal material risks and opportunities facing the company specifically (as opposed to generic sector risks), the company appetite in respect of these risks, how these risks and opportunities have moved over time and the response to those changes. These opportunities and risks should integrate material economic, environmental and social issues, including climate change and data stewardship.
Using the framework of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), we have completed a comprehensive gap analysis and an initial assessment of our climate risks and opportunities, to ensure our climate strategy is fully integrated into our overall business strategy.
In 2022 and early 2023, we plan to carry out a deep-dive climate scenario analysis. this will allow us to quantify the financial impacts of climate change on our firm and embed climate considerations into our risk management process and improve our disclosures related to this. the outcomes of this work will inform our climate transition plan.
Wider discussion (beyond climate) of integrating ESG risks in our governance systems is included in our Sustainability Report (section 6.1 ESG risks and governance).
Refer to section 6.0 Sound Governance > 6.4 Professional Integrity
Refer to section 6.0 Sound Governance > 6.4 Professional Integrity Refer to section 6.0 Sound Governance > 6.3 Labour and Human Rights
Refer to 1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper section > 1.2 Our Materiality Assessment Refer to 6.0 Sound Governance > 6.1 ESG risks and governance Refer to section 5.0 Our Environment > 5.1 Net Zero transition Our CDP Climate Change questionnaire responses are publicly available on CDP's website, which cover our risks and opportunities in greater detail.
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM METRICS CORE METRICS AND DISCLOSURES (SEPTEMBER 2020) (CONTINUED)
PILLAR
THEME
METRICS AND DISCLOSURES
DLA PIPER RESPONSE AND COMMENTARY
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT SECTION / PAGE REFERENCE
Planet Planet Planet
Climate change Climate change Nature loss
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
For all relevant greenhouse gases (e.g. carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, F-gases etc.), report in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) GHG Protocol Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Estimate and report material upstream and downstream (GHG Protocol Scope 3) emissions where appropriate.
We have set a Science-based Carbon Reduction Target to reduce all 3 scopes by 50% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline year. As of 2021/22, we have reduced our carbon emissions across all 3 scopes by 47%. Please see detailed carbon emissions data in our ESG Metrics tables.
In 2022, we have gone further and committed to become a Net Zero law firm by 2040. This Net Zero target is currently in the process of being validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative.
TCFD implementation
Fully implement the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
If necessary, disclose a timeline of at most three years for full implementation.
Disclose whether you have set, or have committed to set, GHG emissions targets that are in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5C and to achieve Net Zero emissions before 2050.
Using the framework of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), we have completed a comprehensive gap analysis and an initial assessment of our climate risks and opportunities, to ensure our climate strategy is fully integrated into our overall business strategy.
In 2022 and early 2023, we plan to carry out a deep-dive climate scenario analysis. This will allow us to quantify the financial impacts of climate change on our firm and embed climate considerations into our risk management process and improve our disclosures related to this. The outcomes of this work will inform our climate transition plan.
We have set a Science-based Carbon Reduction Target to reduce all 3 scopes by 50% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline year. As of 2021/22, we have reduced our carbon emissions across all 3 scopes by 47%.
In 2022, we have gone further and committed to become a Net Zero law firm by 2040. This Net Zero target is currently in the process of being validated by the Science-Based Targets initiative.
Land use and ecological sensitivity
Report the number and area (in hectares) of sites owned, leased or managed in or adjacent to protected areas and/or key biodiversity areas (KBA).
Biodiversity is not one of our material environmental issues as we are an office-based organisation predominantly located in urban areas.
Refer to 7.0 Reporting on sustainability > 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our Environment
Refer to section 5.0 Our Environment > 5.1 Net Zero transition
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM METRICS CORE METRICS AND DISCLOSURES (SEPTEMBER 2020) (CONTINUED)
PILLAR
THEME
METRICS AND DISCLOSURES
DLA PIPER RESPONSE AND COMMENTARY
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT SECTION / PAGE REFERENCE
Planet People People
Freshwater availability
Water consumption and withdrawal in water-stressed areas
Report for operations where material: megalitres of water withdrawn, megalitres of water consumed and the percentage of each in regions with high or extremely high baseline water stress, according to WRI Aqueduct water risk atlas tool. Estimate and report the same information for the full value chain (upstream and downstream) where appropriate.
Dignity and equality
Diversity and inclusion (%)
Percentage of employees per employee category, by age group, gender and other indicators of diversity (e.g. ethnicity).
Pay equality (%) Ratio of the basic salary and remuneration for each employee category by significant locations of operation for priority areas of equality: women to men, minor to major ethnic groups, and other relevant equality areas.
Dignity and equality
Water consumption is the smallest of our operational environmental impacts in terms of materiality. As most of our offices are rented, we have limited control over our water supply and water conservation measures.
However, in our biggest offices we work with our landlords to continuously review opportunities to improve water efficiency and to incorporate water saving and treatment innovations in our office fit-outs. When we move into new office spaces, we review the building's water efficiency and ensure the latest water-saving technology is used.
We're working to gather more reliable data about water use in our offices. Once we have an accurate baseline, we will develop comprehensive plans to ensure water efficiency across all our offices and will begin reporting on this.
Refer to section 5.0 Our Environment > 5.2 Operational footprint
Please see our Sustainability Report for this data. Please note we do not currently report on ethnic or racial diversity of our people, but have plans to do so in the future.
Refer to 2.0 Our People > 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
Refer to 7.0 Reporting on sustainability > 7.2 ESG Metrics > Our People
We currently only disclose this information in the UK and Australia via our gender pay gap reporting. Also please see our Sustainability Report (section 2.1 Diversity and inclusion) for our overall approach to equality.
In 2022, the WGEA data gender pay gap report indicated that Australia's national gender pay gap is 13.8%. With our continued commitment to work towards achieving parity, DLA Piper has a pay gap sitting at 12.5%, this is 1.3% lower than the national average. looking at gender pay gaps based on like-for-like roles and position to market, our current gender pay gap overall is 0.3% in favour of females, as a result of the recent July 2022 salary review.
As of April 2021, in the UK our median gender pay gap for all employees increased to 17.0%, up slightly from 16.8% in April 2020. Our gap mainly results from the fact that than 70% of employees in the lowest pay quartile are females.
UK Gender Pay Gap Report
Refer to 2.0 Our People > 2.1 Diversity and inclusion
People
Dignity and equality
Wage level (%)
Ratios of standard entry level wage by gender compared to local minimum wage.
Ratio of the annual total compensation of the CEO to the median of the annual total compensation of all its employees, except the CEO.
We do not currently disclose these metrics. However, please see our Sustainability Report (section 6.3) for an overview of our approach to fair pay.
Refer to 6.0 Sound Governance > 6.3 Labour and human rights
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.6 WEF Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics index
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM METRICS CORE METRICS AND DISCLOSURES (SEPTEMBER 2020) (CONTINUED)
PILLAR THEME
METRICS AND DISCLOSURES
DLA PIPER RESPONSE AND COMMENTARY
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT SECTION / PAGE REFERENCE
People
Dignity and equality
Risk for incidents of child, forced or compulsory labour
An explanation of the operations and suppliers considered to have significant risk for incidents of child labour, forced or compulsory labour. Such risks could emerge in relation to:
a) type of operation (such as manufacturing plant) and type of supplier
b) countries or geographic areas with operations and suppliers considered at risk
As a professional services business, most of our employees are professionally qualified and highly skilled people, a significant proportion of whom are regulated by a professional regulatory body. As a result, our risk of human rights or labour violations is lower overall than in sectors such as manufacturing or fashion. However, we have a responsibility to ensure that we do not overlook the small proportion of our people who are employed in lower wage professions and in higher risk markets.
There's also a lower risk of labour and human rights violations in our supply chain, which consists of goods and services procured to enable our people to deliver legal services. However, there are certain areas of our supply chain that carry a potential risk of modern slavery in particular, suppliers operating in Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia, especially in labour-heavy sectors such as cleaning, catering, security, and transportation services.
Refer to 6.0 Sound Governance > 6.3 Labour and human rights
Refer to our Modern Slavery statement
People People
Health and wellbeing
Health and safety (%)
The number and rate of fatalities as a result of work-related injury; high-consequence work-related injuries (excluding fatalities); recordable work-related injuries; main types of work-related injury; and the number of hours worked.
An explanation of how the organization facilitates workers' access to non-occupational medical and healthcare services, and the scope of access provided for employees and workers.
Workplace safety plays an important role in health and wellbeing, and we aim to foster a culture where all these aspects are treated holistically. Alongside our initiatives to support mental health, we have a management system in place to reduce the risk of accidents, injuries and illness. the system ensures a consistent approach to safety across our international offices.
Please see section 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing for a comprehensive overview of our approach, and section 7.2 ESG Metrics for our Occupational Health & Safety data.
Refer to 7.0 Reporting on sustainability > 7.2 ESG Metrics > Occupational health and safety
Refer to 2.0 Our People > 2.2 Employee health and wellbeing
Skills for the future
Training provided (#, $)
Average hours of training per person that the organization's employees have undertaken during the reporting period, by gender and employee category (total number of hours of training provided to employees divided by the number of employees).
Average training and development expenditure per full time employee (total cost of training provided to employees divided by the number of employees).
For average hours of training per person, please see section 7.2 ESG Metrics in our Sustainability Report. In the future we have plans to provide more granular data, including by gender and employee category, as well as expenditure per full time employee.
Refer to 7.0 Reporting on sustainability > 7.2 ESG Metrics > Nurturing our talent
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.6 WEF Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics index
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM METRICS CORE METRICS AND DISCLOSURES (SEPTEMBER 2020) (CONTINUED)
PILLAR
THEME
METRICS AND DISCLOSURES
DLA PIPER RESPONSE AND COMMENTARY
Prosperity
Employment and wealth generation
Absolute number and rate of employment
Total number and rate of new employee hires during the reporting period, by age group, gender, other indicators of diversity and region.
Total number and rate of employee turnover during the reporting period, by age group, gender, other indicators of diversity and region.
In 2021/22 the firm had 2,111 new hires. Our voluntary turnover rate was 15.7%.
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT SECTION / PAGE REFERENCE
Refer to 7.0 Reporting on sustainability > 7.2 ESG Metrics > DLA Piper at a glance
Prosperity Prosperity
Employment and wealth generation
Economic contribution
1. Direct economic value generated and distributed (EVG&D), on an accruals basis, covering the basic components for the organization's global operations, ideally split out by: Revenues Operating costs Employee wages and benefits Payments to providers of capital Payments to government Community investment
2. Financial assistance received from the government: total monetary value of financial assistance received by the organization from any government during the reporting period.
The following figures are for FY20/21, as at the time of publishing this report these are the most recent figures publicly available: Direct economic value generated and distributed: Revenue: GBP 1,164.5m Operating costs: GBP 727.5m Employee wages and benefits: GBP 351.2m Payments to providers of capital: GBP 1.5m (interest payable on bank loans) Payments to government: GBP 2.8m (tax) Community investment: GBP 24.2m (including cash donations, in-kind, volunteering time, and management costs) Financial assistance received from the government: GBP 2.1m (COVID-19 related government grants) GBP 1.0m (other COVID-19 related government assistance, such as income tax relief and deductions)
Refer to our Full Accounts on Companies House website
Employment and wealth generation
Financial investment contribution
1. Total capital expenditures (CapEx) minus depreciation, supported by narrative to describe the company's investment strategy.
2. Share buybacks plus dividend payments, supported by narrative to describe the company's strategy for returns of capital to shareholders.
The following figures are for FY20/21, as at the time of publishing this report these are the most recent figures publicly available:
Capital expenditure less depreciation: GBP 7.4m. Made up of: Intangibles (GBP 4.4m), PPE (GBP 3m)
Share buybacks plus dividends - No shares as the Group is an LLP
Refer to our Full Accounts on Companies House website
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.6 WEF Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics index
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM METRICS CORE METRICS AND DISCLOSURES (SEPTEMBER 2020) (CONTINUED)
PILLAR
THEME
METRICS AND DISCLOSURES
DLA PIPER RESPONSE AND COMMENTARY
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT SECTION / PAGE REFERENCE
Prosperity Prosperity
Innovation of better products and services
Community and social value
Total R&D expenses ($) Total costs related to research and development.
Total tax paid The total global tax borne by the company, including corporate income taxes, property taxes, non-creditable VAT and other sales taxes, employer-paid payroll taxes, and other taxes that constitute costs to the company, by category of taxes.
Figure not currently available for disclosure
The following figures are for FY20/21, as at the time of publishing this report these are the most recent figures publicly available:
Total tax expense GBP 2.8m (current tax GBP 3.4m less deferred tax credit GBP 0.6m)
Employer-paid payroll taxes GBP 31m (social security)
Refer to our Full Accounts on Companies House website
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
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> 7.7 Memberships, commitments and awards
7.7 Memberships, commitments and awards
Awards
INTERNATIONAL AWARDS
EMEA AWARDS
DLA Piper was one of only ten international firms ranked in the Legal 500 EMEA Green Guide launched in April 2022.
We have also been recognised in the US and LatAM editions.
Recognised as a Global Energy Transition Innovator in Green Finance, Wind Sector Finance Advisory Expertise, in Reuters' Top 100 Innovators Report.
Ranked by inspiratia as the #1 renewable energy legal advisor for year 2021 (globally).
For the second consecutive year, DLA Piper received the Global Law Firm of Year award
Corporate Pro Bono Partner of the year award from the Pro Bono Institute for our work with Pfizer (USA)
Best ESG Initiative: Financing Wind, 2022
Global Law Firm of the Year: Financing Wind, 2021 and 2022
Environment, Social and Governance Firm/Team of the Year: Partnership Awards, 2022
Level 5: RSGI's Sustainable Lawyers "The Green Print Report", 2022
Most Effective Pro Bono Partnership: LawWorks, 2021
Elevate programme shortlised in the the Expansin Jurdico Awards 2021.
(Legal Awards for Excellence in the Practice of Business Law Spain)
In January 2022, One Voice Made of Many was recognised as a leading D&I initiative in PR Week's Corporate, City & Public Affairs Awards.
The campaign was also recognised in Law.com's Legal Innovation Awards 2022, where it was shortlisted in the PR and communications category. In Spain, the campaign was shortlisted in the Best D&I Initiative category in the VII Expansin Legal Awards.
IFLR Africa Awards 2022 nominations Law Firm of the Year DLA Piper Africa, Rwanda (Equity Juris Chambers) Law Firm of the Year DLA Piper Africa, Uganda (S&L Advocates) Law Firm of the Year DLA Piper Africa, Zimbabwe (Manokore Attorneys)
Ranked by inspiratia as the #1 corporate power purchase agreements legal advisor for year 2021 (Europe).
ASIA PACIFIC AWARDS
Asia Finalist for 2021 Asia Employee Wellbeing Awards
In 2022, DLA Piper Australia achieved and maintained its citation for 9 years in a row as `Employer of Choice for Gender Equality' with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA). We are a proud Silver Level, Employer of Choice, awarded in 2021 for Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI), LGBT+ inclusion in a workplace. In addition, since 2014, DLA Piper participates in the rigorous WGEA Employer of Choice for Gender Equality and is consistently awarded citation as an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality.
DLA Piper recognised by China Business Law Journal in the annual China Business Law Awards 2022 in the following twelve categories: Best International Law Firms Asset management Capital markets (Overseas) Dispute resolution (Cross-border) Employment & labour IP (Copyright) M&A (Outbound) Restructuring & insolvency Taxation Construction & infrastructure Industrials & manufacturing Real estate & REIT
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.7 Memberships, commitments and awards
Memberships, commitments and awards
INTERNATIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
EMEA MEMBERSHIPS
APBCo (The association of pro bono counsel) Advocates for International Development Business for Societal Impact (B4SI) Circle In Executive Coaching Consultancy Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL) Global Refugee Forum Legal Community Pledge Net Zero Lawyers Alliance Out Leadership PILnet Rare Recruitment Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
(TNFD) Forum Trust Law
93% Club Alliance des Avocats
pour les Droits de l'Homme Business Disability Forum (UK) Carers UK City Parents European Pro Bono Initiative Fundacin Pro Bono Espaa ILPA (Immigration Law Practitioners Association) (UK) Law Works (UK) Legal Diversity and Inclusion Alliance Legal Renewables Initiative (UK) Legal Sustainability Alliance (UK)
ASIA PACIFIC MEMBERSHIPS
Living Wage Foundation (UK)
Mansfield Rule (UK) My Plus Consulting (UK) Pirical (UK) Polish Society of
Anti-Discrimination Law PRIME (UK) Pro Bono Centrum Pro Bono Connect Pro Bono Deutschland Pro Bono Italia Race Fairness
Commitment (UK) Race at Work Charter Stonewall (UK) The Collaborative Plan
for Pro Bono (UK) The Good Lobby The Social Mobility
Pledge (UK) UPJ Working Families (UK)
Australian Legal Sector Alliance Australian Network on Disability Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency City Mental Health Alliance HK Corporate Mental Health Alliance Diversity Council Australia Hong Kong Gay and Lesbian Attorneys Justice Connect Law Access Law Right Lawyers for LGBT+ and Allies Network (LLAN) Pride in Diversity The Inclusion Circle
EXTERNAL COMMITMENTS
Business Ambition for 1.5C Mindful Business Charter United Nations Global Compact We Mean Business Coalition
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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> 7.8 Further information
7.8 Further information
This sustainability report is only a snapshot of our performance. For more recent updates on our sustainability performance please visit www.dlapiper.com or our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
You can also download the Executive Summary of this report, as well as our Regional Highlights 2021/22 report from our website.
We welcome feedback on our reporting and performance. Please email [email protected] with any comments or questions.
This report was produced by DLA Piper's Responsible Business team led by Nicolas Patrick, Partner and Head of Responsible Business, Ian Hagg, Director of Responsible Business, and Claire Donse, Partner and International Head of Pro Bono.
Nicolas Patrick Partner and Head of Responsible Business
Ian Hagg Director of Responsible Business
Claire Donse Partner and International Head of Pro Bono
Natalya Lozovaya Senior ESG Manager
Mariam Sheikh Senior ESG Analyst
0.0 Introduction
1.0 Sustainability at DLA Piper
2.0 Our People
3.0 Our Clients
4.0 Our Society
5.0 Our Environment
6.0 Sound Governance
7.0 Reporting on sustainability
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