What are CSR and ESG?
CSR and ESG at AFG LAW
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. It is a set of standards which measure a company’s impact on society, the environment and how transparent/accountable it is.
CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. It is a model of business which helps companies to be socially accountable to themselves, the stakeholders and the public.
Both ESG and CSR are incredibly important in the present day to ensure ethical and responsible business practices and activities. At AFG Law, we are continuously working to both support and improve the wider communities we operate in and take intentional steps to ensure our business policies and procedures are environmentally and socially responsible.
In 2024 we relaunched our company culture to include 9 pillars, with ESG and ED&I (Equality, Diversity & Inclusion) covering two of these pillars.
People
At AFG Law, our people are our heartbeat. We have created an incredibly reliable and steadfast team through the years due to our commitment to develop our team to their best ability, allowing us to provide reliable customer experience to clients across the departments, year on year. Some ways we support our team include:
Employment opportunities - we offer a number of apprenticeships across different departments as well as work experience for local school students. We develop our people to the best of their abilities through supporting career progression opportunities and helping employees to reach their career goals. This is done by providing financial support, paying for courses for trainee solicitors, paralegals and apprentices. Everyone undergoing qualifications alongside work also receives a study day a week to ensure they can stay on top of their studies.
Cultural inclusion is incredibly important to us at AFG Law, and we do our best to ensure everyone’s beliefs and values are respected within the firm. We also provide features in our monthly newsletter of upcoming religious events for anyone wishing to learn more about the cultures of others within the firm.
We have an internal intranet for all team members which includes resources such as the firm’s business plans for the year, monthly updates, and signposting resources for mental health support, menopause and happiness at work.
We provide mental health support to all employees at AFG Law through training mental health first aiders as a first point of contact for employees, as well as offering a recharge day to all our people.
As part of our commitment to the local community and our CSR, we offer two paid volunteer days for all team members each year.
The firm offers a number of benefits such as additional leave for length of service, annual leave for birthdays, social committee get-together events across the year, annual Christmas company shutdown, an Innovation Group to build better ways of working and an electric car salary sacrifice scheme to make electric vehicles more affordable to all, helping our environmental impact.
We also offer flexible working hours to accommodate needs outside of work & childcare commitments and to make the workplace more inclusive to those with additional needs or who cannot work fulltime in an office.
Our offices & wider environment
In recent years, AFG has introduced a hybrid working model to all offices, which has led to a reduction in travel and, as such, the firm’s carbon footprint, whilst simultaneously encouraging a better work-life balance for employees. Our hybrid working model promotes ED&I in the workplace, enabling us to have more inclusive hiring practices, as roles become accessible to people with disabilities, or with caring responsibilities.
We have adopted a paperlite approach, continuing to work on reducing the amount of paper printed in the firm. All team members log in to printers so the firm can ensure everyone is printing double-sided where possible and that there is no excessive printing to avoid using resources such as paper, ink and electricity unnecessarily.
The lights used in our offices are automatic, helping us to reduce our environmental impact by both lowering energy usage and emissions but also enhancing our social responsibility through operational efficiency.
Introducing hot desking via a desk booking system has also improved energy efficiency and therefore our environmental impact as computers and monitors which are not booked remain switched off. This has also improved the inclusivity of the workplace as all employees are free to move desks each day and sit with colleagues from different departments.
Purchasing in the firm is done in an environmentally conscious way. One example of this is that the the coffee purchased by the firm in 2024 protected 4,050 square metres of rainforest.
Societal impact
At AFG Law, we seek to support the local communities which we operate within, and both build and maintain relationships within the communities to ensure we have a positive impact on them. There are several ways we do this as a firm, beyond the paid volunteer days offered to all team members.
We hold a Legal Aid contract at all three of our offices to ensure that the most vulnerable in society have access to legal services. As part of this, we have built long-term relationships with local domestic violence charities to provide services to their members as well as running drop-in clinics for members. Some of the organisations supported include Fort Alice, WHAG, Endeavour Project and Stockport OWLS.
Charitable contributions are a key part of our business strategy, and we contribute via our partnership with Bolton Lads and Girls Club, donations to Bolton Wanderers in the Community alongside other charities, and through our annual Christmas gift drive to provide Christmas presents to those being supported by local domestic violence agencies. We also provide a monthly lunch to all team members which has a trifold benefit – subsidised lunch, supporting a local charity through donations for the meal and supporting local businesses by buying the lunches locally.
Our team is also part of the Legal Advice Bureau, providing a monthly session at Bolton Central Library. In this session, locals are offered free access to lawyers and students from the University of Greater Manchester gain hands on legal experience.
Governance
Our governance practice is built of elements such as transparency of, and clarity around, decision-making in the firm. The executive leadership team (ELT) and senior leadership team (SLT) make up the leaders from each department, and each meet monthly. These meetings are followed by a firmwide gathering, recorded for those who are unable to attend, where employees are informed of news and developments in the firm and can ask questions regarding decisions and updates. This guarantees that the ELT and SLT are held accountable to all employees in the firm, ensuring ethical conduct and responsible decision-making.
A firmwide engagement survey is also circulated every 6-12 months to evaluate the firm’s performance and ensure that all internal stakeholders feel that the firm’s governance continues to be ethical, environmentally conscious, and transparent.
Speak to one of our expert Solicitors