News & Views

Bill Papastergiadis, Melbourne Managing Partner at Moray & Agnew has been appointed as a Commissioner of the Victorian Multicultural Commission (VMC). VMC is an independent body that acts as conduit between Victoria’s multicultural communities and State Government. Commenting on this most recent appointment, Bill says “I strongly believe the richness of Victoria’s diverse multicultural communities is one of our greatest strengths as a State. I am honoured to play a part in advocating on behalf of all multicultural communities, and committed to continuing the good work of the Victorian Multicultural Commission in its valuable mission to help to strengthen the relationships of these communities with government and with each other.” READ MORE 

The Monash Centre for Financial Studies (MCFS) looked at the modern slavery statements submitted by 99 ASX100. Woolworths, Wesfarmers and Westpac are just a few of the organisations leading the charge. Lead researcher Dr Nga Pham and her team found that the companies that scored highly had made managing modern slavery risks a priority but also had a large number of employees and big supply spends. The research showed that for the 99 companies the research team looked into, the most common modern slavery risks were forced labour, child labour and debt bondage (forcing someone to work to pay off money owed). READ MORE

The Global Compact Network Australia (GCNA) has been awarded funding as part of the Australian Government’s National Action Plan to Combat Modern Slavery 2020-25 to develop the Modern Slavery Impact Initiative (MSII). A multistakeholder, Australia-wide initiative. The initiative will incorporate a series of collaborations and resources to enable a collective response to tackling modern slavery in business operations and supply chains. READ MORE HERE

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report (‘The Physical Science Basis’) announced it is “unequivocal” that human activity is heating the planet, climate change is here, and it’s occurring at a faster rate than previously anticipated. Meanwhile the world’s leading climate scientists have also warned that Australia will bear the brunt of extreme weather changes unless deep and sustained emissions reductions take place in the coming decades. 

Here are five key actions the UN Global Compact promotes for businesses like law firms

1. Set a net zero target:
2. Set short-term science-based targets:
3. Include climate risks in strategic planning:
4. Develop a just and equitable transition plan:
5. Invest in climate action:

Read more HERE

Many ASX-listed firms are paying female executives 30-35% less than their male counterparts, and this gender pay gap impacts shareholder return, according to new research from the University of South Australia.

There are all sorts of benefits in having increased gender representation - different perspectives, women tend to be more risk averse than men, women are more willing to engage in corporate social responsibility activities." said Jill Gould, a co-researcher on the project.The study concludes that executive men more than women can hit at company returns. If a male executive is paid 2.6 times that of their female counterpart, every woman added to the team will lower the firm's annual return on assets by 2.2% READ MORE 

Clifford Chance's ESG board, spans a wide range of practice areas and sectors. It will be discussing how a new focus on the environment, social considerations and governance is driving change across businesses, who realise that a failure to address these issues can be detrimental both for their reputation and financially. Running from 4pm until 6pm on Wednesday 8 September, there’ll be an interactive panel discussion about key ESG themes to help students build their commercial awareness and understanding of the topic, followed by a Q&A led by students’ questions. REGISTER HERE 

Companies are increasingly setting net-zero goals to address climate change, but any meaningful and credible decarbonisation strategy must have smart energy use as its foundation. This to be taken seriously they must have energy efficiency at the core, argues Toby Morgan. We are now nearly two years into the Climate Decade, With COP26 on the horizon, and the release of the landmark IPCC report, it is clear that we must act now to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Energy efficiency is the low hanging fruit. READ MORE 

There are many signs that the climate change policies of customers, suppliers and governments will increasingly reduce the ability to climate laggards to operate . Recently Glasgow City Council published eligibility criteria for all organisations looking to book its civic spaces during the COP 26 conference. Large businesses are required to have either set science-based targets for reducing emissions, pledged to set science-based targets for reducing emissions or have joined the UN’s Race to Zero Campaign. READ MORE 

When a firm sets climate goals, how should it think about the footprint of employees, particularly in an increasingly “hybrid” working world? In this webinar, experts in employee engagement, behaviour change, Scope 3 emissions and new emerging offset options will discuss the future of the “net-zero employee.”

In this webcast, you’ll learn how to:

• Engage employees in sustainability and carbon mitigation efforts
• Equip employees with their own personalized footprint and action plan
• Incentivize employees with carbon offsets and pro-social rewards
• Communicate and report on how individual employee actions are driving collective impacts

REGISTER HERE 

COVID-19 has changed working conditions and lines have become blurred between home and work. With mental health particularly prevalent in lawyers amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Sharon Ponniah, a PwC health and wellbeing partner with a PhD in public health, shared her thoughts with Lawyer’s Weekly about the mental health risks within the legal profession, what more firms can do to support their employees and why it’s so important to implement initiatives now. “By designing the work to accommodate wellbeing needs like work-life balance, it can go hand in hand with the culture change to enable empowerment of lawyers, particularly those who are most vulnerable.” READ MORE