Corporate purpose

Embedding your corporate purpose into your governing structure is not just about articulating your mission. It’s about delivering it.

An embedded purpose can sustain a founding vision as your company grows and expands. It can reduce the risk of mission drift and culture shift as the company encompasses new voices and moves in new directions. It can provide an anchor for strategic decision making, safeguarding the mission in the face of challenges and opportunities.

If you’re setting up a new entity with a purposeful focus, we’ll help you to find the right legal form to support your vision.  If you’re part of an established business looking to embed your purposeful or ESG commitments, our team of experts will advise on the best governance structures to cement your corporate purpose and take into account the needs of your stakeholder groups.

How we help

Our team includes some of the country’s leading specialists in legal structures that deliver purpose, from traditional social enterprise-style models through to new, innovative approaches that will transform your ideas into a structure to suit your needs.

Options that we frequently advise on include:

  • Becoming a certified B Corp, including the advising on the legal requirement and what this means for directors’ duties.
  • Mission-locked forms like community interest companies (CICs) / social enterprises. We’ve been advising social enterprises since the earliest days and we originated the CIC model in a proposal to government.
  • Adding a golden shareholder, who is not entitled to a financial return, but can have a veto right over strategic decisions that could compromise the corporate purpose.
  • A steward-owned structure, where voting rights are limited to those close to the mission rather than to third party investors.
  • The legal aspects of employee-owned structures.

We’re a proud partner in Purposely, a free online tool that provides guidance and template documents for new organisations looking to embed purpose.

Explore

Textiles made of agricultural waste, sustainable supply chains and the needed changes in the fashion industry: in conversation with Sarah Angold, 29acacia

Oliver Scutt recently sat down with Sarah Angold, co-founder of 29acacia, to discuss her determination to transform the fashion industry by producing textiles from agricultural banana waste. The idea was born when her business partner Varun, whose experience in agricultural waste management in India meant he was seeing in real time the large-scale waste streams …
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Purpose & Impact: your round-up | October

Welcome to your round-up: a monthly selection of news hand-picked to help keep you up to date, for businesses, investors and others working to create positive impact. Jump to: Corporate purpose B Corps Social enterprise Climate & biodiversity Impact investing Corporate purpose Bates Wells’ Louise Harman and Oliver Scutt will be at Blue Earth Summit …
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Bates Wells Impact Report 2026

We have an ongoing responsibility to create lasting positive change through our work with clients and our operations. Our role as lawyers is to help shape the systems, governance models and legal frameworks that support a more sustainable nature-positive economy. Our 2026 Impact Report focuses on environmental leadership in action and the ways in which …
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Bates Wells Impact Report 2025

We are united as a firm in our values and in our purpose. We want to use the law as a force for good, helping charities and purposeful businesses to be better and bolder in their choices. We also want to be the best type of business that we can be, and to bring others …
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Creating a ‘Speak Up’ culture in purpose-driven businesses: The benefits of an effective whistleblowing framework

Bates Wells convenes the Impact Counsels’ Forum, a space for senior counsel working within impact investors, B Corps, and other purpose-driven businesses. The forum discusses the ‘impact angles’ on legal and practical issues faced by in-house legal teams. Recently, the forum explored the benefits of an effective whistleblowing framework and how that can support an …
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