Womble Bond Dickinson (WBD) is a founding member of the Legal Sustainability Alliance and were one of the first law firms in the UK to make the commitment of achieving net zero by 2030. LSA caught up with WBD’s Partner Sponsor for Net Zero, Jon Bower, and Sustainability Manager, Mathew Swift, to find out what they got up to during #NetZeroWeek.
“This year WBD identified a fantastic opportunity through Net Zero Week to raise awareness around our Net Zero commitment launched in October 2021 (WBD launches its roadmap to achieving net zero by 2030 | Womble Bond Dickinson), what Net Zero means for our organisation and how our colleagues can get further involved in terms of ensuring we deliver on this objective.” Mathew explained.
“Throughout the week we featured a number of fantastic resources on our website, including links to the LSA website. We hosted an insightful webinar with one of our suppliers, Commercial Group. This was of particular relevance, given the likely impact of our scope 3 supply chain emissions (typically up to 70-80% for an organisation such as WBD).”
WBD Partner Sponsor for Net Zero, Jon Bower, also did a weekly vlog takeover, providing colleagues with an update on the firm’s progress and next steps. The week finished off with a call to action – encouraging the WBD community to participate, share their stories and suggestions and continue to contribute on our carbon emissions reduction journey.
Jon commented: “It was fantastic to see so many colleagues engage with our Net Zero Week activities. As a business we have been working hard to understand the impacts we have on our environment and encourage employees to learn how they can assist in reducing their carbon footprint.”
“We look forward to continuing our partnership with the LSA as an executive member, working collaboratively with this fantastic network of law firms who share a commitment to improving our environment and make a positive impact through our operations as well as with our clients, many of whom share similar commitments.”
In their quest to achieve Net Zero by 2030, WBD has already made great strides. They have reduced emissions to below 1 tonne CO2e per employee (2012 figure was 2.93 tonnes per employee), reduced the space by more than 50% at their largest office in Newcastle (WBD moves into new sustainable office at Newcastle Helix), invested in LED lighting across all offices, and now recycle approximately 90% of their waste firmwide.
WBD has also continued to improve their EPC ratings in line with refurbishments of their offices – notably improved to a C in Bristol, B in Plymouth and BREEAM building in Edinburgh and Newcastle.