DWF Group plc announces global ESG Strategy
09/12/2021 06:59
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RNS Number : 0560V DWF Group PLC 09 December 2021
DWF Group plc
("DWF" or "the Company" or "Group")
LEI: 213800O9QREOHTOGQ266
9 December 2021
DWF Group plc announces global ESG Strategy
DWF, the global legal business, has today published its ESG Strategy. The
launch of the strategy follows a comprehensive review of business processes
and behaviours alongside the completion of an independent Materiality
Assessment. It therefore reflects the ESG issues most important to all
stakeholders of the Group. It includes ambitious science-based targets through
which the Group commits to reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris
Agreement, along with stretched targets to further improve the Group's
diversity and inclusion.
The group ESG Strategy has six priority areas:
Climate action: Becoming a net zero business within a low carbon economy.
Diversity and inclusion: Accelerating progress to improve representation and
diverse talent pipelines.
Empowering colleagues and our communities: Sustaining a skilled workforce
today and for the future, continuing to prioritise colleague health and
wellbeing, and taking action to help and collaborate with communities in need.
Supporting and connecting with our clients: Being clear and transparent about
how we can help clients to improve their sustainability performance through an
ESG-centric approach.
Acting with integrity in everything that we do: Taking ownership and holding
ourselves accountable for the way we do business.
Building trust and increasing transparency: Enhancing the credibility of our
own ESG disclosure, consistent with our purpose of delivering positive
outcomes with our colleagues, clients and communities.
Sir Nigel Knowles, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
"I am pleased to announce our group ESG Strategy, through which we have set a
number of ambitious new targets to drive progress across our business,
particularly in relation to climate action and equality, diversity and
inclusion.
"The increased emphasis on ESG and the expectations of businesses to respond
appropriately are both welcome and necessary. The challenges facing the world
are substantial, in some cases daunting, but all businesses have a
responsibility to do more to tackle them, by ensuring that we operate
responsibly and contribute positively to a sustainable future for generations
to come.
"As the only Main Market listed legal business, this position gives DWF a
unique perspective on ESG. We share the scrutiny and transparency that
regulators, and all stakeholders, expect from clients and have learned
important lessons about implementing effective ESG policies. This also means
committing to consistent high performance around ESG is fundamental to our
success as a firm, specifically in terms of delivering our Group strategy,
realising commercial advantage, and in retaining and attracting key talent.
"Doing the right thing defines who we are and integrity is essential to
everything we do. The strategy we launch today is consistent with our
purpose-led approach to business and has the engagement of and accountability
from our PLC and Executive Boards, along with all levels of leadership right
across our business."
Our KPIs
Climate
· Reduce Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions by 50% by 2030.
Gender
· Increase the proportion of women on the PLC and Executive Boards to
at least 40% by 2025, with the same target applying to the proportion of women
in all senior management roles.
Ethnicity
· In the UK, increase the representation of Black, Asian and Minority
Ethnic colleagues across senior management to at least 10% by 2025.
· In the UK, increase the representation of Black, Asian and Minority
Ethnic colleagues across all career bands to at least 13% by 2025.
· In the UK, increase Black representation overall and in senior roles
to at least 3% by 2025.
Kirsty Rogers, Head of ESG at DWF, said:
"Our strategy and targets provide a framework that will ensure there is a
sustained commitment and focus on how we do business, and for driving change
for a better future for all our stakeholders.
"We have set and are committed to targets that we know will be challenging but
believe that our colleagues will want to be part of a sustainable solution. A
50% reduction in emissions, especially in Scope 3, relies on changes in
behaviour from everybody, but this is necessary given the scale and urgency of
action required. We are focussed on working with our colleagues to educate,
engage and support everyone with our shared aim.
"In addition to our stretched diversity and inclusion targets, alongside our
work on equality, we are also committed to improving our pay gap reporting.
This will mean extending our existing UK gender pay gap reporting so that it
is a global report and ensuring that we have pay gap reporting across all
other aspects of inclusion, not just gender."
Remuneration and governance
Our commitment to ESG is reflected by the inclusion of ESG objectives in the
performance requirements of the Executive Directors of the PLC board, ensuring
that their remuneration is connected to delivery of the strategy.
Direction of the ESG Leadership team comes from Matthew Doughty, Chief
Operating Officer and Kirsty Rogers, Head of ESG, with all members of the
Executive Board expected to consider their responsibilities through the lens
of ESG.
Reporting
Our continued progress in achieving our KPIs will be reported annually within
our annual report and accounts and also in a separate annual ESG report.
For further information
DWF Group plc
James Igoe - Head of Communications +44 (0)7971 783533
Maitland / AMO
Sam Turvey +44(0)20 7379 5151
Sam Cartwright
Notes to Editors
DWF worked with Business in the Community to complete its ESG Materiality
Assessment.
Please find below current data relevant to our gender and ethnicity KPIs
· 30% of DWF's PLC Board positions are held by women (3/10)
· 33% of DWF's Executive Board positions are held by women (5/15)
· Female representation in all senior management roles (classified as
people at career bands 1a to 3a) is 28%
· BAME representation across all career bands in the UK is 11%*
· BAME representation in senior management roles in the UK is 4%*
· Black representation across all career bands in the UK is 2%*
· Black representation in senior management roles in the UK is 0%*
*BAME and Black representation data is based on information provided by 77% of
DWF colleagues in the UK.
About DWF
DWF is a global provider of integrated legal and business services provided
through its three offerings of Legal Advisory, Mindcrest and Connected
Services. It has offices and associations located across the globe. The
Company became the first Main Market Premium Listed legal business on the
London Stock Exchange in March 2019. DWF recorded Net Revenue of £338.1
million in the year ended 30 April 2021. For more information visit:
dwfgroup.com
Effective from 1 May 2021, the Group transitioned to a new internal operating
structure which it believes will support its aim of becoming the leading
global provider of integrated legal and business services. DWF has moved from
its previous five divisions (Commercial Services, Insurance Services,
International, Connected Services and Managed Services) into three more
streamlined and efficient global divisions of Legal Advisory, Mindcrest and
Connected Services.
Together, the three divisions support DWF's single Integrated Legal Management
approach through which the Group can seamlessly combine any number of these
services to deliver bespoke solutions to its clients with greater efficiency,
price certainty and transparency. This approach enables DWF to offer clients
solutions that combine traditional law firm services with new, modern legal
and business services relevant to today's companies and the challenges and
opportunities they face.
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