Environmental, Social and Governance Annual Report 2023
Making a difference, together…
Making a difference, together…
As a people-focussed and ambitious Top 100 law firm, we are committed to delivering the best outcomes and having a positive impact for our colleagues, clients and communities.
As a people-focused and ambitious Top 100 law firm, we’re committed to delivering the best outcomes. So we can make a positive impact – on our colleagues, clients and communities.
With this in mind, we’re pleased to share our first ever Annual ESG Report. Highlighting the progress we’re making towards our ESG commitments, it showcases some real-life examples of how our colleagues are working together to make a difference and demonstrates our performance against key metrics.
We’re proud of the progress we’re making towards our commitments and will continue to push ourselves to deliver even better outcomes. Supporting our clients, colleagues, and communities in their journeys and helping them to thrive. This report is also available as a PDF download.
– Graham Street, Managing Partner
Section One: Supporting our colleagues, clients and communities
Our culture strives to develop talent, deliver exceptional service for our clients, and support the communities we operate in.
We’re proud of our dynamic and inclusive culture which prioritises the growth of our people to build long term positive relationships with our clients and communities.
This culture enables us to nurture the best talent and ensures we deliver exceptional service for our clients, while also supporting the wider communities we operate in.
We are also proud that colleagues recognise our diverse and inclusive culture; with 85% of colleagues agreeing that our firm treats everybody with dignity and respect, and 82% of colleagues feeling comfortable bringing their whole self to work.
Our commitments to our colleagues, clients and communities are recorded in our ESG Framework.
Commitments for 2023/2024…
Continue to create opportunities for our people to develop themselves, including a new self-development toolkit aligned to our Career Development Framework.
Create a ‘Client Charter’ explaining how we work with our clients and how this aligns with our values.
Promote meaningful opportunities for colleagues to engage in pro bono work to benefit our wider communities.
Driving Diversity and supporting talent
Our ED&I Committee drives our ED&I Action Plan, which focusses on raising awareness and making a difference across all aspects of diversity. This includes strengthening and increasing diversity in our talent pipelines, which will help us to deliver the best outcomes for our clients and make us a great place to work.
We are currently supporting the Inspire Law Global and 10,000 Black Interns Programmes for a second year running, which seek to offer a range of internships to improve workplace representation in the UK and help to remove barriers to entry. As a direct result of these programmes we have offered roles to five participants. We also have six Graduate Solicitor Apprentices across our business.
As part of our commitment to driving Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, we now run a range of internal and external mentoring programmes. We know that mentoring and reverse mentoring can be a powerful tool for supporting strong and diverse talent pipelines, while helping to make our firm, industry and society more inclusive.
Through an external programme, several of our Partners have been paired up with mentees as part of a reciprocal mentoring scheme for aspiring Black legal professionals. We are also proud to have a successful and long-established internal mentoring scheme and are building on this through our externally facing Thrive Mentoring Programme. This programme will support the next generation of talented lawyers, pairing our legal professionals with students from traditionally under-represented groups, so that every student can fulfil their potential regardless of their background.
"We take great pride in providing learning and development opportunities for our people and I’m delighted that we have promoted over 31 colleagues this year across our Legal and Business Services Teams”.
Clients and collaborations
Our ESG work extends beyond our internal initiatives and programmes. We’re pleased to work with a variety of clients on ESG related projects, helping them to solve real world problems and drive sustainability in their field.
Delivering fuel-efficient cooking stoves to rural Zambia
We recently assisted our client The African Stove Company Limited (“TASC”) as part of a project to finance and distribute 90,000 fuel-efficient cookstoves in Zambia.
This project is expected to impact over half a million Zambians living in rural communities, with each fuel-efficient cookstove removing up to 75% of toxic indoor pollution. Shelley Estcourt, CEO of TASC Africa, said: “TASC prides itself on implementing high-quality carbon projects with a focus on integrity and transparency – we are very excited about this new project in Zambia and the significant impact it will have on the lives of many Zambians. It was great to work again with the team at RWK Goodman who understand our cross-border structured finance model and worked closely with us to pull together the project and financing aspects of the transaction. RWK Goodman have provided great advice throughout.”
Paul Webb , our Corporate Partner leading on the transaction added: “We were delighted to have been part of this ground-breaking initiative aimed at improving the lives of Zambian communities. The development of sustainable projects, such as this one, is a key element in achieving the removal of greenhouse gas emissions, on which the transition to a net zero economy depends.”
Supporting transformation in Social Care
We support a broad range of care providers, who are in turn supporting the most vulnerable people in our society.
As a leading provider of legal services to the social care sector, we are proud to be a founding legal partner for the Care Innovation Hub (CIH).
The Care Innovation Hub is a pioneering organisation seeking to inspire innovative new ways to tackle the critical challenges faced by the sector and ensure the best possible outcomes for those in receipt of care services.
As social care lawyers, we have significant experience advising on the legal and regulatory issues which care providers face in the day-to-day running of their business. We understand the challenges providers face and have seen the positive impact that care leaders embracing technology and innovation can have for service users and the workforce.
We feel that the CIH and its Founding Partners are expertly placed to help champion the introduction of innovative new ways to transform service delivery and service user experience in the sector. We are pleased to be able to support these like-minded care organisations to create innovative solutions to the biggest issues in social care.
– James Sage, Partner & Head of Health & Social Care
Bringing it to life… Supporting our local communities
Every 2 years, colleagues have the opportunity to nominate and vote for regional charities for whom we commit to raise funds, giving us the chance to give back and have a real positive impact across our local communities.
This year, we are delighted to have launched new partnerships with:
- Supporting Sick Newborns and Parents (SSNAP)
An Oxford based charity which supports families of sick and premature babies through purchasing life-saving equipment and enabling life-changing research and training. - We Hear You (WHY)
A Bath based charity providing free emotional support for patients, families, friends and carers who have been affected or bereaved by cancer or any other life-threatening conditions. - The Simon Community
A London based charity which supports homeless people by providing places where they can meet to gain a sense of belonging and move towards independent living. - Rainbow Trust
A Wiltshire based charity which supports families who have a child with a life-threatening or terminal illness to make the most of their time together.
They can use these every year to give back to good causes in the local community.
Each year we support our charities through a range of initiatives and activities including pro bono legal work, fundraising and volunteering days.
This year, as part of our office clear out and refurbishment, we set up donation boxes across our offices for colleagues to donate any preloved work clothing to charity. These donations were given to clothing charity, Smart Works, who support jobseekers by providing outfits and interview skills.
– Sophie Webb, Charity Committee Lead
Through this partnership, I was delighted to have been asked to use my HR specialism to become a Trustee, and I am now one of seven people who sit on the board of Trustees for the charity. We meet quarterly to discuss the running of the charity, including the creation and implementation of new policies, sign off of budgets or to discuss updates on who the new charity partners are.
I’m really proud to be a Trustee and am grateful of the support RWK Goodman has given me to pursue this. By working together, we help a relatively small local charity like Trauma Breakthrough continue supporting those in need.”
– Emily Curtis, Senior HR Advisor
Section Two: Driving towards carbon zero
We recognise that our firm will have a direct and indirect impact on our local, regional, and global environment.
As a forward-thinking firm, we are prioritising raising awareness of key environmental issues and encouraging innovation in our working practices to have a positive impact on the environment, without compromising the quality of service we deliver.
As part of our environmental commitment, we are focussing on embracing sustainability across all aspects of our operations and supply chain and supporting our colleagues to contribute to positive change.
“A key focus for our recent office redesign was to make sustainability a priority. Across our office spaces, all our energy comes from renewable sources and all lighting now uses more energy efficient LED lightbulbs.
Instead of creating unnecessary waste, we re-covered our existing chairs and re-purposed old carpet tiles and glass to create fresh and modern meeting rooms. Any furniture we couldn’t use was donated where possible to local schools and charities.
We also focussed on making improvements to the space for our colleagues and clients. We installed better glazing on our windows to provide greater insulation and more natural light, while also creating dedicated comfortable ‘safe spaces’ in each office for activities such as praying or breastfeeding”.
-Mark Jones, Chief Operating Officer
Our ESG commitments to driving towards carbon zero are:
“We’re passionate about our ‘Digital First’ approach across our firm, encouraging colleagues to reduce paper waste by promoting digital formats of marketing materials to support our commitment to ensuring less waste goes to landfill.”
Commitments for 2023/2024…
Promote the use of digital tools to drive innovation and reduce our environmental impact.
Measure and monitor scope 3 emissions, as well as auditing suppliers against scope 3 targets.
Continue to build alliances with local companies to use sustainable products in our offices and support colleagues to make more sustainable choices.
Section Three: Ensuring transparency and accountability
Our ESG objectives make sure our leaders are visible and accountable, ensuring our committees have clear roles and responsibilities.
Our governance structure supports us to achieve our ESG objectives by making sure our leaders are visible and accountable, ensuring our committees have clear roles and responsibilities and helping colleagues understand the part they can play.
Our Partnership Committee provides regular governance and reporting, enabling us to demonstrate we are meeting our goals and monitoring our progress to keep pushing for better outcomes.
Our ESG Framework details the commitments we make to ensuring transparency and accountability:
Commitments for 2023/2024…
Continue to monitor our progress against key metrics, clearly communicating our progress in our Annual ESG Report.
Launch our updated brand and strategy, which will include a focus on sustainability.
Review and update our Employer Value Proposition (EVP) and Career Development Framework, to ensure we have the tools in place to support learning, development and succession pathways.
Some facts about RWK Goodman…
RWK Goodman is the result of the merger of Royds Withy King and Goodman Derrick on 1 May 2022.
With offices across the South of England and a total headcount of 572, RWK Goodman is one of the UK’s fastest growing mid-tier law firms.
In the last full financial year the firm achieved revenue of £53.8m, making it the 78th largest law firm in the UK (The Lawyer Top 100 2023).
Over a third of our partners were recognised this year by Chambers UK as leaders in their field.
We believe in fairness and equity and we practice what we preach. Out of our 97 partners; 67 are Equity Partners, with almost all participating in the leadership of the firm, its divisions and practice groups.
Bringing it to life… Leading to create a high-performance culture
“Every year, as part of our regular programme of activity, we host a Conference for our Partners and Senior Leaders, giving us the opportunity to align on business objectives and set our strategic direction for the year ahead.
This year, the theme for our Conference was around leadership and creating a high-performance culture. Our kick-off event at Silverstone formed the launch for an innovative new programme of leadership development activity that we are rolling out across our senior team. This programme explores what it takes to lead a high-performance culture and how we can develop mindsets and behaviours for leading and delivering high performance and organisational change.
This is a key part of our Governance commitment, investing in our people to ensure we are all equipped to lead our teams to drive sustainable growth, holding us accountable and allowing us to truly drive positive change across our firm and wider industry”.
– Mei-Ling Huang, Chair of RWK Goodman Partnership Committee
The progress we’re making - Performance against key metrics
Our metrics will allow us to track the progress we are making towards our ESG commitments, ensuring we hold ourselves accountable for our performance.
| Environment | 2022/23 |
| Electricity consumption kWh | 618,791 |
| Electricity consumption (tCO2) | 122 |
| Renewable electricity consumption (%) | 90% |
| Gas consumption kWh | 13 247 |
| Gas consumption (tCO2) | 2 |
| General waste generated (tCO2) | 65 |
| Scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and services (Tonnes CO2) | 6,775 |
| Carbon Footprint per employee (tCO2e) | 13 |
| Green commuting (% of Total journeys) | 49% |
| Commuting total (tCO2) | 75 |
| Commuting per employee (tCO2e) | 0.41 |
| Homeworking total (tCO2) | 237 |
| Carbon Footprint per employee (Homeworking) (tCO2e) | 0.43 |
| Paper consumption (Office based)(sheets) | 2,173,862 |
| Confidential waste collected and recycled (Tonnes) | 24 |
| Business travel emissions (tCO2) | 76 |
| Business travel emissions (tCO2e) | 0.14 |
| Social | 2022/23 |
| Employee Engagement – I feel proud to work here (% favourable) | 79% |
| eNPS – How likely are you to recommend our firm as a good place to work | 29 |
| Promotions to Associate/Senior Associate | 9 |
| Promotions to Salaried/Equity Partner | 11 |
| Staff Turnover | 20% |
| Professional Deputyships/Trustee appointments | 65 |
| Charities/Community Foundations supported annually | 7 |
| Volunteering Days used | 105 |
| Volunteering participation (% of total workforce) | 15% |
| Commuting total (tCO2) | 75 |
| Commuting per employee (tCO2e) | 0.41 |
| Homeworking total (tCO2) | 237 |
| Community engagement/Pro Bono hours | Commentary available |
| Money raised for nominated charities (£) | 27779 |
| Governance | 2022/23 |
| Total number of employees | 570 |
| *FTE | 557 |
| Part time workers | 132 |
| part time workers (%) | 24% |
| Total number of Partners | 104 |
| Female Partners | 49% |
| Female Directors and Senior Associates | 82% |
| Ethnicity representation workforce (%) | 12% |
| Ethnicity representation Partners (%) | 9% |
| Social Mobility (workforce from non-professional household) | 46% |
| Graduate Recruitment statistics (Social mobility) | Not available 2023 |
| Revenue (£m) | £53m |
| Profit before taxation (£m) | £14.7m |
| Lawyer UK 100 ranking | 78 |
| Partners recognised by Chambers UK | 35 |
| Members of Partnership Committee | 9 |
| Female members of Partnership Committee | 33% |
| Non Executive Partnership members | 11% |
| ESG objectives actively managed | Yes |
| Quality Accreditations | 3 |
You can download a PDF version of the RWK Goodman Environmental, Social and Governance Annual Report 2023 by following the link below.