Sustainability in Practice – Hengeler Mueller's Commitment to a Greener Future

Sustainability remains an important subject, both in the provision of legal services to our clients and in how we manage our internal business operations. German companies have a two-tier board system, divided into a management board and a supervisory board. In cooperation with the German Supervisory Board Working Group (Arbeitskreis deutscher Aufsichtsrat e.V.), we conducted a supervisory board survey (insert link), in which these supervisory boards identified sustainability awareness as a key issue for their companies. 

Environmental awareness and sustainability are also among our firm's top priorities. Through diverse individual initiatives at specific locations, as well as across all our offices, we work continuously and proactively to reduce our ecological footprint and energy consumption. This means that our initiatives cover various areas, such as our business travel, resource conservation in our offices and our purchasing decisions. Our sustainability committee, for example, comprising staff members from all our German office locations, has regularly assessed the sources of our carbon emissions for years, compiling data and developing strategies and measures to offset them. In addition, the sustainability committee is responsible for making proposals to further improve and promote our planned sustainability efforts. Furthermore, one way in which we demonstrate our commitment to ecological sustainability is through programmes that we implement together with staff across all our offices: 

• Our German offices are supplied with 'green power'.

• With German airline Lufthansa, we have an offset of CO2 emissions based on our bookings integrated into our air travel, and we strive to use carbon-friendly modes of transportation whenever we travel.

• We provide bicycles to our staff for greater urban mobility while on business.

• We are integrating sustainable solutions into the renovation of our offices.

As part of our efforts towards achieving greater sustainability, we also collaborate with external partners. One of these partners is a service provider through which we provide an annual amount for carbon offsetting purposes. HessenForst's reforestation campaign, dubbed 'Unser Wald' (Our Forest), is another project close to our hearts. A public enterprise, HessenForst maintains and manages forests throughout the entire state of Hesse. We support their efforts through an annual financial donation that is our small contribution to preserving the forest ecosystem and to adapting the tree population to withstand climate change.

Thanks to our offsetting service provider and the reforestation campaign, we offset some of the carbon emissions from our operations that cannot reasonably be avoided.