Sustainability

At Hengeler Mueller, we take the matter of sustainability very seriously. That is why our firm is working towards sustainable, environmentally conscious operations and business activities. As an economic player, Hengeler Mueller accepts the responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint.

As a service provider, our efforts to operate in awareness of the environment focus on our business travel, conserving resources at our offices and our purchasing decisions.
Since we are organised as a partnership of independent legal professionals, all of us are responsible to take environmentally-friendly decisions.

Committee and working groups for sustainability

We have consolidated our environmental management in a committee for sustainability made up of partners, associates and employees from across the offices of our firm. The partner members of this committee are Daniel Engel, Jörg Meinzenbach, Christian Schmies and Wolfgang Spoerr. Further members of the working group include, among others, Astrid Rogge (Operations & HR Business Services) and Maren Streil (Controlling).

The sustainability committee assists the partnership in matters relating to sustainability and decarbonisation, for instance by regularly assessing where the firm causes the most CO₂ emissions and by compiling and preparing options for compensating CO₂ emissions that cannot be reasonably avoided throughout the firm, to this end, Hengeler Mueller cooperates among others with atmosfair. Additionally, working groups have been established at the German offices in order to integrate our efforts more broadly within the firm and to ensure an exchange of information and knowledge.

Carbon footprint

In Germany, there are many environmental aspects that have now long been translated into legal requirements, such as measures to avoid and recycle waste, control air pollution and conserve energy, all of which we adhere to with conviction. 
In addition, we are constantly working on achieving our own goals, which include:

• assessing our CO₂ emissions,
• identifying and preventing avoidable CO₂ emissions and
• compensating for the CO₂ emissions that we cause and that are unavoidable for the time being due to our business model. 

To continually assess our CO₂ emissions, we are collaborating with the law firms of our Best Friends network to produce a peer group comparison and exchange ideas. In other words, we are not only comparing the footprints of our own offices to one another, but also to those of other firms.

Examples

Over the last few years, the measures we have taken and the activities we engage in to prevent and compensate our CO₂ emissions have included the following:

• We have been working for some time to reduce the energy consumption at our offices on the basis of energy audits. 
• Our German offices are supplied with ‘green electricity’.
• We have integrated into our air travel with Lufthansa AG a compensation for CO₂ emissions based on our bookings and strive to use carbon-friendly modes of transportation when we travel.
• We provide bicycles and scooters for greater mobility within the city while on business.
• We use CO₂-neutral paper at our German offices and are working to reduce our paper consumption.
• We are integrating sustainable solutions as we renovate our offices.
• We are upgrading our digital infrastructure for videoconferences and digital meetings in order to avoid travel.