June’s pledge comes from one of our legal sector clients. Working with Osborne Clark has resulted in some ambitious pledges, together with action plans for implementing them.
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Here’s Conrad Davies, the Managing Partner’s full pledge. He demonstrates the power of agency and the importance of support from the top decision maker of a company.
“As Managing Partner I will make a long term commitment over my lifetime in the role to ensure that reducing our emissions, and meeting our climate pledges, remain a key strategic priority and lend my personal voice to the internal actions we need to take achieve net zero. Amongst other people, I will work with Michelle McGurl, Matt Germain and Mary Lanvin to explore how I can get personally involved in our programmes and act as a role model.
“Mobilising action across the whole firm is essential.
“We need to win hearts and minds on this topic and it will be really important for me as Managing Partner to be seen to be fully committed to our goals and actions in my personal behaviour and how I’m supporting the actions we need to take. This should help the wider group deliver on their individual and team actions. The direct and indirect impact of delivering on these actions will be central to the overall aim of meeting our carbon targets.
“This should help the wider group deliver on their individual and team actions.
“The direct and indirect impact of delivering on these actions will be central to the overall aim of meeting our carbon targets.
“My plan will be achieved through multiple levels. The most important thing is to be seen to be taking this very seriously and by consistently putting it at the top of the agenda. The previous managing partner achieved this very well with diversity and inclusion. There is still much to be done on that front but I want to ensure climate change has a similar focus.
“A key way of achieving this is by consistently linking our work in this area (our legal expertise on dealing with the climate challenge and what we are doing ourselves to decarbonise) with our firm strategy and long term profitable growth. It’s important our partners understand we are doing this not just because it’s the “right” thing to do (although that, itself should be reason enough) but because (a) our clients and people are increasingly demanding it, and (b) because there are real market opportunities for us in doing so. Making the moral and the business case is essential. I can be a strong advocate for this in my role.”
Fully committed
“I will show I am fully committed to the Firm’s goals by supporting the decisions we need to make to execute on our climate commitments.
“The biggest impact I can make is by ensuring I continue to support the tough decisions we need to make to deliver on our commitments. We have the plan to do this and I can ensure this plan remains a priority through supporting Michelle and the whole OC for Good team. I can also ensure that it is included in our firm’s annual tactical objectives (which we did this year) and that it remains a key pulse of our 2030 strategic planning next calendar year.
“There will be a lot of things I can do personally but from a corporate perspective it’s about supporting a range of actions intended to deliver on our plans (e.g. I’ve supported and just given approval for us to proceed with green financing for our RCF renewal). This aligns our finance to our climate pledges and makes a very clear statement about our commitment to delivering on them.”