RWK Goodman Environmental, Social and Governance report 2025-2026
In their broadest sense, our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments set out how we as a firm can have a lasting positive impact for our clients, our colleagues, and our communities.
When I started my tenure as Managing Partner last July, I reaffirmed the firm’s – and my personal – commitment to ensuring we operate responsibly and sustainably, while holding ourselves accountable for the progress we’re making against our ESG targets.
In particular, I am mindful of the increasing impact we are all having on our environments and the steps we can collectively take to minimise this. This has led us to take a deeper look at how we can better measure and report our environmental data so that we have an accurate platform to make real progress from. With this in mind, we are re-analysing and re-setting our baseline data, and so a full metrics report will follow this one in September this year.
There is, inevitably, more work for us to do, but I am proud of the progress we continue to make, as shown in the many examples in this report. I’ve no doubt that our new initiatives, and reinvigorated action plans from our Environmental, ED&I, Wellbeing, Charity, and Social Committees, will help push us further forward.
Paul Daniels, Managing Partner
Environment: Establishing new partnerships & thinking forward
We know that everything we do has an impact on our environment, and how we mitigate and manage that is vital.
We’ve partnered with Couch to Carbon Zero – an organisation dedicated to educating and raising awareness around the climate and nature crisis, and empowering individuals and organisations to take positive action for the planet. Our colleagues are busy people, so providing engaging, bite-sized sessions like those provided by Couch to Carbon Zero as a way of helping people understand what impact their current actions have, and how they can make practical, small changes that will make a big difference, has been really important. We’ve had excellent feedback to the sessions we’ve run so far, and look forward to more in the coming months.
We’ve also started working with Ecologi, who provide a platform that helps professional services organisations measure and reduce their emissions, and report their progress towards net-zero. Having undertaken a review into our environmental data, we realised we needed support to ensure we were reporting the most accurate data we could, particularly around our Scope 3 emissions. Ecologi are helping us create a new benchmark for our data going forward, as well as guiding us through how we can make further improvements.
But that doesn’t mean we’ve sat still. We strive to think forward and pursue better – always looking ahead to how we can make changes today that will help tomorrow.
Both our Marketing and Business Development (MBD) and IT teams have made changes to how they support the firm with sustainability in mind, from eco-friendly marketing collateral and a digital first approach to event literature in MBD, to more energy efficient monitors and laptops being issued across the firm. By the end of the year, when all colleagues have received their new laptop, we’ll have saved an estimated 74,750 kg of CO₂e – the same amount of carbon absorbed by 3,398 trees in a year.
“The Couch 2 Carbon sessions have been a brilliant new initiative from the Environment Committee. The sessions are full of energy and thought-provoking content, that manage to scale things down and highlight the small to medium differences we can all make that have an impact.”
Mei-Ling Huang, Partner, Dispute Resolution
Social: Helping our colleagues and communities to thrive
Supporting our colleagues to be their authentic selves whilst thriving at work underpins the excellent service we can provide our clients.
We identified that enhancing our Learning and Development (L&D) provision was key to this, and our new L&D strategy is starting to be rolled out across the firm. We’ve recently launched our first dedicated development programme for our Paralegals – Aspire – to provide them with the specific support they need.
We believe in empowering everyone to not only follow their chosen career paths, but also to give back through initiatives they feel passionate about.
We were pleased to support Ellie Spencer, a Partner in our Dispute Resolution team, when she launched the ReLaunch Club, a community for women returning to work after maternity leave. The aim is to provide support, practical tools and a network of women in similar positions to help women step back into work with confidence, clarity and resilience.
And we were delighted Kim Lehal, a Partner in our Family team, was recently shortlisted in the Law Firm leader category at the Women and Diversity in Law Awards. Alongside her work in international children’s law, Kim has championed growth and inclusivity through her work with our Thrive Mentoring programme, and by recently becoming our ED&I Committee lead.
Our Thrive Mentoring programme has now entered its third year, through which we aim to nurture the next generation of talented black lawyers by pairing them with one of our senior lawyers to act as a mentor, providing one-to-one guidance, impartial advice, encouragement, and support to help their mentee build confidence, develop professionally, and prepare for a successful future career in law. The programme highlights our broader ongoing commitment to fostering more diverse talent pipelines and providing opportunities for those from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.
"The Thrive Mentoring Programme played an important role in my development, giving me the chance to learn from experienced professionals, build meaningful connections, and further develop both personally and professionally. Stepping into a full-time role at the firm felt like a natural progression, as the experience gave me a strong foundation and helped me settle into the role with confidence."
Elikem Katro, Thrive mentee and now a Legal Assistant in our Private Client team
As well as helping our colleagues and future colleagues thrive, we’ve been delighted to support our regional Community Foundations for another year.
In Oxford, we’ve supported Pennyhooks Farm Trust, which provides a unique experience for young people and adults who have autism, helping them develop social and working skills through animal care, horticulture, woodwork, baking and more.
As part of a multi-year donation, Pennyhooks has been able to employ a woodwork and conservation teacher for two days per week and an assistant care farm manager, enabling the Trust to engage more students in woodwork projects and conservation jobs across the farm.
And in Bath, we’ve supported Mentoring Plus, a local charity who help young people facing significant challenges at home or school, to feel safe, heard, and hopeful for their future through 1-2-1 mentoring, youth clubs, and other activities. As a firm, we recognise how valuable spaces for connection and shared learning can be, and so are delighted to have sponsored and host the first of the charity’s “Inspiring Leaders” events which aims to create a welcoming, high-quality space where Bath’s professional community can connect, learn and be inspired, while also supporting a vital local charity.
“Our first Inspiring Leaders event was a huge success, and we were very thankful to have the support of RWK Goodman to help make it so. From that one event, not only did we raise vital funds for the charity, but we also had three new volunteer mentors sign-up for training, three new pending partnerships with local organisations, an offer of sponsorship for a summer sporting event in our aid, and lots more conversations about future support. We have also had really positive feedback about the event itself, our speaker, the venue and the connections made between our attendees. We can’t wait for the next session!"
Ruth Keily, CEO of Mentoring Plus
In the coming months, we will be launching the RWK Goodman Charitable Foundation, spearheaded by Paul Daniels, our Managing Partner. Driven by Paul’s commitment to helping those from disadvantaged backgrounds, the Foundation will primarily work with social mobility charities in each of our regions.
Governance: Guiding our business so we can guide our clients
We exist to service our clients, providing them with expert legal advice whatever life throws their way. And we know that we can only do that if we operate with an effective governance structure.
Strong governance underpins how we operate as a firm and how we manage risk, growth and change. As RWK Goodman continues to evolve, we remain focused on ensuring that decision‑making is clear, accountable and supported by robust systems and controls.
Protecting client confidentiality and firm data is fundamental to the trust placed in us. Cyber security is therefore treated as a core business risk, overseen through our governance and risk management framework rather than as a purely technical issue.
We continue to strengthen our information security controls and focus on building awareness and accountability across the firm, recognising that effective cyber security depends as much on culture and behaviours as it does on systems.
Our annual training and regular updates were put to the test earlier this year when we worked with ethical hacker Rob Shapland to simulate a cyber-attack on our network to see how colleagues across the firm responded.
“The response of all of those involved in our test was excellent, with the senior team (who received a fictitious media enquiry about the attack) and IT team reacting rapidly, calmly and proportionately. This is testament to the focus and importance the firm place on training and awareness raising of the various threats their colleagues could encounter, and gives confidence that if the firm were ever to be the victims of a real attack, they would very likely be able to respond effectively.”
Rob Shapland, ethical hacker at Cyonic Cyber
Our approach is designed to ensure that risks are identified, managed and responded to in a structured and proportionate way as the threat landscape continues to develop.
As part of our commitment to strong financial governance, transparency and operational resilience, we are investing in a new practice management system, Elite 3E. The programme represents a significant firm‑wide change and is being delivered through a clear governance model with executive oversight and defined accountability.
The implementation is intended to improve data quality, strengthen financial controls and enhance the quality of management information available to support decision‑making.
Good governance is an ongoing discipline. Over the coming period, we will continue to evolve our governance framework to reflect regulatory developments, technological change, and stakeholder expectations. By maintaining a clear focus on accountability, resilience, and transparency, we aim to support the firm’s long‑term sustainability and growth.
Our ESG Framework explains the commitments we make to our colleagues, clients and communities; ensuring we operate responsibly and sustainably, while holding ourselves accountable for the progress we’re making.
