Welcome to our first annual Impact Report.
We launched Ben McQuhae & Co in 2021 as a law + ESG offering to apply our skills as lawyers to contribute to the global imperative of building a sustainable future. We determined the best way for us to achieve our objectives was to place sustainability at the heart of our business plan and value proposition. To us, this means: (1) to provide legal support only to projects that make a positive impact through UN SDG-alignment; (2) to develop a service offering that leverages legal solutions to help drive corporate sustainability efforts and the sustainability transition; and (3) to integrate sustainability in our own internal operations.
Integrity is fundamental to the execution of sustainability commitments which means our objectives and our performance must be clear, transparent and measurable. This is why we developed our SDG Tracker (through which we assess mandates and measure alignment with the UN SDGs), and this is why we publish an annual Impact Report. Through our Impact Report, we reflect on our firm’s sustainability journey, the impact our firm has been able to co-generate with our clients, and how we can contribute more to the sustainability transition.
Reflecting on our journey in the past year, we are reasonably satisfied with the positive impact achievements we were able to bring about during our first year of business, and encouraged by the lessons we have learnt, all of which will help us do better. In some instances we were able to bring about impact achievements that greatly exceeded our expectations. For instance, we were surprised by clients’ receptiveness to our suggestions to integrate positive ESG outcomes into mandates that did not previously show positive alignment with the UN SDGs, and this has empowered us to look for ways to deliver additionality through facilitating more positive outcomes. It was also empowering to bring innovation to sustainability through new structures and frameworks we have developed for our clients. Throughout the year, we have also taken the opportunity to test and experiment with the ways we have integrated sustainability in our business model, and from that, reflect on how we can do better.
Most importantly, our achievements and lessons learnt motivate us to improve, to do more, to be more ambitious. More courageous. Speed and scale require it. We look forward to the challenges and opportunities in the year ahead and will share with you some of the lessons we have learnt and our plans for improvement.
We are a small business intent on making a big difference. I am very mindful that I owe so much to my team and our clients whose support makes it all real. Thank you.
Check out our full Impact Report 2022 here: https://bmcquhae.com/en/impact-report-2022/.
