Why Should Law Firm CMOs Care About Social Responsibility and Sustainability?

In mid-2015, as the CMO of a global actuarial consulting firm, I noticed increasing interest in our firm's social responsibility and sustainability efforts from our clients — mostly global and multinational insurers and financial institutions. The questions were detailed and specific. Initially, we responded with the typical, catch-all responses: “Many of our offices participate in/donate to/volunteer for/recycle, etc.”

Our answers were vague simply because we believed that these questions were mostly aimed at our clients' other suppliers — certainly not us, their trusted advisers. We were very wrong.

We realized just how serious our clients were when a current client issued a questionnaire to their providers/supply chain/vendors covering many topics, including a section on social responsibility and sustainability. The scores we received on that section of the questionnaire were so low that our total score did not reach the threshold to continue to round two of the proposal process. We lost an existing client because our social responsibility and sustainability scores dragged us down.  And, that particular client only issues RFPs every four years. Quite a loss.

Obviously, this was extremely frustrating because our firm has a long-standing tradition of community investment, volunteering and philanthropy. We had certainly been doing as much as any other professional service firm in the social responsibility space. However, as is typical for many firms, these efforts mostly bubbled up organically at the local office or practice level. We weren't tracking or measuring these efforts on a firm-wide, global basis and therefore didn't have the specific metrics or details that clients wanted.

They were asking us for outcomes — not just output. And we didn't have the answers.

We quickly realized that at a minimum we needed to capture everything that was happening around the firm so that we would have aggregate, firm-wide answers. Then more proactively, we would collaborate and build a program that would have a greater impact as a whole than each office was making individually.

What Is Driving the Increased Interest from Clients?

You only need to read or watch the daily news to see frequent reminders of climate change, the lack of gender equity and racial equality, and what our lifestyle is doing to our planet. In his 2019 Annual Letter to CEOs, Larry Fink of BlackRock Investments wrote: “[S]ociety is increasingly looking to companies, both public and private, to address pressing social and economic issues.” And, while the current U.S. administration has stepped out of the Paris Climate Agreement, businesses are stepping up to affirm their commitments, evidenced by the #We'reStillIn and #ActOnClimate movements.

The United Nations (UN) is encouraging businesses to step up and tackle pressing societal issues of the day. In 2015, as a follow-up to the United Nations Millennial Goals, the UN developed the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), with a target date of 2030. With less than 12 years remaining, public and private partnerships around the globe are working to achieve these goals. When our clients and prospects align with the UNSDGs or become a member of the UN Global Compact, they are making a commitment to work toward those goals as individual companies, and also through the companies and organizations with which they work. Goal #17: Partnerships for the Goals encourages companies to align and do business with others who are committed to making progress toward these goals. That includes vendors, suppliers, and service providers — including outside law firms.

What Can a Law Firm CMO Do?

These basic and fundamental steps will help you be better prepared when clients and prospects evaluate your firm's social responsibility and sustainability program:

• Implement a system to capture all that is already happening in the social responsibility and sustainability space at your firm. I enlisted 70 employees throughout the firm to serve as CSR Ambassadors and submit information into a system on our intranet about what their local office or practice is doing. This allows for aggregate, firm-wide answers to your clients' questions. Having this information also helps tell a more cohesive, holistic story about your firm's efforts around the globe or whatever your geographic footprint might be.
• Familiarize yourself with the 17 UNSDGs and their underlying targets. The structure of the 17 UNSDGs is quickly becoming the universal language when talking about social responsibility and sustainability programs. Tie your initiatives and programs to those goals regardless of whether your firm actually joins the UN Global Compact. When you speak in the language of the UNSDGs, your social responsibility and sustainability efforts are more tangible and understandable for both internal and external stakeholders. It's important to speak about your firm's CSR program in the language and framework that your clients and society is using.
• Identify clients who are already members of the United Nations Global Compact. They are committed to working toward the UNSDGs, providing a platform for your firm to seek collaboration opportunities with them and deepen the relationship
• Be proactive, rather than reactive. In other words, instead of dreading the CSR and sustainability questions bound to come your way, prepare now. Currently, there is an opportunity for firms to be proactive. Approach clients with potential collaboration and partnership ideas to help achieve the UNSDGs. Right now, that can serve as a differentiator for your firm. Eventually, however, strong CSR and sustainability programs will simply be the table stakes expected of all law firms, not unlike client expectations around diversity and inclusion and pro bono programs.

Lead the Change

Given the increasing challenges facing our planet and our society, and considering our role in creating the current state of affairs, it is up to us to change the way we do business to slow and reverse the damage. Business as usual is not sustainable. As stated in Larry Fink's Annual Letter to CEOs: “At a time of great political and economic disruption, your leadership is indispensable.”

Your firm's stakeholders — partners, associates, staff, clients — and your vendors, supply chain and business communities will look to law firms to serve as leaders for innovative change. Law firms are in a unique position to lead that change. CMOs can and should be among the leadership voices to help their firms recognize this as an obligation and an opportunity. Together, the business community must lead the way.

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Pamela Cone has more than 25 years' experience in the professional services industry in marketing and communications roles, and more recently, building social responsibility programs in collaboration with clients and in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of 2030. She is the Founder and CEO of Amity Advisory (amityadvisory.com), a consultancy to help firms strengthen their CSR programs beyond transactional to achieve truly transformational social impact outcomes.