Responsible Business is embedded in everything we do at Womble Bond Dickinson.
In fact, one of our six strategic goals is to: “Lead the way on Responsible Business, building an ever more sustainable, inclusive and progressive business for our people, communities and planet.”
Holding ourselves to high standards
Our Ethical Framework supports the delivery of our Responsible Business Objective. It sits at the heart of our culture – front and centre of our work - helping us shape our collective identity and guiding how we do things and how we work together. And it sets out our values and the high ethical standards to which we hold ourselves in everything we do.
Our colleagues and clients know that we’ll always act in a way that’s sustainable, inclusive, and progressive. Let’s break down what we mean by that:
- Sustainable: acting ethically and balancing our social, environmental and economic goals for the future of our people, communities and planet
- Inclusive: creating a sense of belonging and ensuring that everyone feels valued, safe, and empowered to thrive
- Progressive: challenging the norm and continuously striving for better.
"Systemic change takes time, but here at WBD we want to be at the forefront of the progress made and are working hard to make sure that good intentions are backed by strong and tangible actions. Good intentions alone are not enough. It's the impact of our actions that really matters."
Sally Dallow, Partner Lead for Responsible Business, Womble Bond Dickinson
Developing our Responsible Business agenda
There are three core elements to our approach:
- Fewer-bigger-better: an intentional focus on a smaller number of key projects with bigger and bolder aims to deliver more targeted and impactful outcomes.
- Collaboration and coordination: joining the dots to bring all our efforts together.
- Clarity: of ambition, of processes, and purpose. Making sure we fully understand the 'what’, 'how' and 'why' of everything we do.
The journey ahead
We’re committed to making progress in the following areas: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Community Engagement and Pro Bono, Environmental Responsibility, Governance and Ethics, Social Mobility, and Wellbeing.
Specific goals for our financial year 2025/26 include submitting our carbon reduction targets for SBTi validation; continuing to grow our volunteering hours – with a goal of 1,600 hours for the year; enhancing our DEI data capture, analysis and reporting; establishing a social mobility network within the firm; achieving ISO 45001 certification (occupational health and safety); and requiring all new key suppliers to complete our new onboarding questionnaire.
Here are some examples of the work we’re doing to make sure our business lives up to its responsible business goal:
Social value impact
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Recognising everyone's contribution
In the financial year 2024/25, we partnered with Thrive using their software to implement a new social value reporting platform which allows us to more robustly measure and track the impact of our responsible business work. Through this platform, we recorded nearly £3,000,000 of social value generated through our core activities for this baseline year and we’ll be building on this in the years ahead.
Our responsible business objectives are mapped against the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We've identified the following six UN SDGs as having the most impact on us as a law firm, that supports the vision of achieving a better and more sustainable future for all.
We want to recognise and reward those involved in contributing to the delivery of our Responsible Business Objective and have introduced new processes to enable everyone in the business to record their 'Responsible Business Hours', (live from the start of our 2025/26 financial year).
Progress in numbers
In our financial year 2024/25 we’ve achieved the following:
£0m
generated in social value.
0%
uptake on our wellbeing days.
0%
reduction in scopes 1 and 2 emissions since our baseline year (FY 2019/20).
0%
of our people completed ethics refresher training.
Ranked
0nd
in the Stonewall Equality Index 2024.
0st
law firm to mark Muslim Heritage month.
0
new apprentices recruited across the business.
Hosted the
0rd
North East Pro Bono Summit.
Celebrating our wins
We are proud of our accreditations, memberships and partnerships with organisations which hold us accountable and enhance the work that we do. They include the following:
- EcoVadis gold (in the top 3% of all companies reporting globally)
- Legal Sustainability Alliance (LSA) founding and executive member
- Investors in People, 'we invest in people' gold
- Investors in People, 'we invest in wellbeing' silver
- Living Wage employer
- Mansfield UK certified
- Disability Confident Leader
- Hidden Disabilities Sunflower member
- Business Disability Forum member
- Stonewall Top 100 Employers
- Stonewall Gold
- Halo hair code
- Social mobility pledge
- Charter signatory – Pro bono
- Mindful Business Charter signatory
- Cyber essentials plus.
Stay informed
