In August we received the news from B Lab that their extensive verification checks had been completed and our third recertification as a B Corp was successful with a confirmed score of 140.2. This is an increase of more than 23 points since we last recertified in 2021 and puts us amongst the top scoring UK B Corps (we’re the only B Corp law firm with a score above 100 points in the UK and the highest scoring law firm globally*). For us, being a B Corp is only part of the story. We want to use the assessment as a way to continuously improve how we operate to make sure that we are always making our business decisions based on what will have the most positive impact on people and planet to create a more inclusive economy that is fair for all.
The increase is due in large part to the clients that we work for, a large proportion of our clients have a direct positive impact on under-served groups or are working to address climate change and social injustice. For us, it’s always important to go beyond, to keep pushing for better business and a shift towards a just transition. That’s why we came up with the Bates Wells Sustainability and Responsibility Pledge, to help us support all our clients to take positive steps towards operating sustainably when we’re giving our legal advice.
Our highest scoring area is in the workers section of the B Impact Assessment, this stems in part from our people policies and the work we’ve been doing to increase diversity and inclusion in the firm. We want the work we’re doing at the firm to have a positive impact on our industry, clients and the wider UK economy so we talk about what we’re doing to support and encourage others to join us in creating more opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in professional service industries. We know it can be difficult to know where to begin when creating a more inclusive workplace and it’s important not to let the fear of getting things wrong stop us from taking meaningful action. Our HR team have been working with some of the lawyers in our Employment team to develop a series of blogs to share practical and legal considerations when looking to embed EDI within organisations to help others get a handle on ways to implement change (explore our Realise Your Purpose series on increasing social mobility and diversity in the workplace, increasing gender diversity in the workforce, and wellbeing in the workplace).
We’ve seen the biggest increase in our community score which has gone up by more than 13 points. This is in part due to the efforts we’ve been putting in to improve our supply chain. We’ve traditionally favoured other B Corps and social enterprises when making our purchasing decisions, and since 2019 we’ve been asking our suppliers to share details with us about their impacts to help us make sure that our values align. We want to be sure that our suppliers are doing things like paying the living wage, trying to reduce their environmental impact and creating opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds. We still have work to do on encouraging all our suppliers to do more particularly in terms of their environmental impact and we’ve been able to draw on our own experience in thinking about how we support our clients to embed sustainability into their supply chain contracts.
We continue to work hard to reduce our environmental impacts and we’re lucky to work with a number of clients looking to create innovative ways of supporting nature and biodiversity. We realise it can help to build on the work of others to take climate action in your workplace so we set out our journey to carbon reduction last year to share our insights and learning up to that point. We learn so much from our networks and recognise the value of working together to drive wider change by collaborating on projects and supporting campaigns like the Better Business Act. That community spirit is one of the many ways that B Corp certification has been of benefit to us as a business.
Of course one of the key principles of B Corp certification is a change in company governance to embrace a triple bottom line. This means that B Corps must take account of people and planet as well as profit in making their business decisions. As the firm that helped set up B Lab UK and wrote the legal test for the UK community, we have ten years of experience and a deep understanding of the governance principles behind B Corp. As a firm this means that our management board engages with and listens to groups from across the firm as part of our routine decision-making process and we realise that there is value in helping others explore the legal requirements more deeply so some of our team have developed B Corp governance training for certified and prospective B Corps. But on a day to day basis our team will also help clients create and embed innovative policies and create a culture of transparency so that people know what they’re signing up for (check out our guide to introducing plain English into contracts).
If you want to know more about how we’ve embraced our values as a B Corp over the last 9 years, if you’re on the B Corp journey and want some help, or if you’re already in the community, we’d love to work with you.
*based on a review of the 100 legal firms listed on the B Corp global directory on 4 September 2024.