Media Release: 2019 AusLSA Sustainability Update shows Clayton Utz advancing in social impact and sustainability efforts

Clayton Utz is one of 40 AusLSA members that contributed to the AusLSA's latest Sustainability Update, which reports on how member firms are tracking against four key sustainability pillars: People, Environmental Sustainability, Community and Governance.

Clayton Utz Environment and Planning partner and AusLSA Co-Chair, Brendan Bateman, said it was encouraging that more firms were seeing the benefits of a collaborative approach to improving the legal sector's sustainability performance and impact. "By sharing knowledge and ideas with each other, and making changes and investing in areas where we know we can do better, AusLSA member firms are showing they have a real and long-term commitment to being better businesses," he said.

Among highlights of Clayton Utz's progress in FY19:

People

• We introduced a Recognition @ CU, a new firm-wide reward and recognition program.
• We were recognised as a Gold Employer at the 2019 LGBTI Inclusion Awards for our efforts to promote LGBTI inclusion.
• More of our people embraced flexible working practices (64% of respondents to our 2018 CU Engage survey said they had a flexible work arrangement).
• Our female partner representation is 30%, putting us on track to meet our target of 35% by 2022.
• We trained almost 1 in 8 people – over 200 of our people – as Mental Health First Aiders and Mental Health Champions, and appointed our first-ever National Mental Health Manager. Clayton Utz is recognised as a Gold Employer under the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Skilled Workplace Program.
• Over 300 of our people participated in 11 separate career development programs.

Environmental Sustainability

• We are carbon neutral, having fully offset our FY19 carbon emissions (representing 16,211 tonnes).
• We disposed of single use cups across all of our offices, which will prevent 250,000+ cups from going to landfill.

Community

• 1 in 3 people at Clayton Utz volunteered with one of our 30 Community Partners through our Community Connect program.
• The Clayton Utz Foundation distributed over $800,000 to community partners and organisations that our people have a connection to through volunteering.
• 32.5 per cent of our people make regular workplace giving contributions to the Clayton Utz Foundation (our Workplace Giving program saw us recognised as the one of GoodCompany's Top 40 Workplaces to Give Back 2019, and with a Silver Award for Best Overall Program at the 2019 Workplace Giving Excellence Awards).
• In FY19, we performed more than 42,800 hours of pro bono work, in more than 1,150 matters (Clayton Utz was named Who's Who Legal Pro Bono Law Firm of the Year 2019).

Governance

• We reviewed and enhanced our crisis management, business continuity and disaster recovery procedures.
• We obtained ISO27001 certification (the international standard for information security) for the fifth consecutive year.

Clayton Utz is a founding member of the AusLSA, a not-for-profit enterprise founded in 2010 with the aim of encouraging collaboration in growing and promoting best practice sustainability practices across the legal sector. 

The AusLSA Sustainability Update has evolved over time as a framework for members and their stakeholders to track the sustainability status of their operations and the effectiveness of their sustainability initiatives.