CSR - Dehns

Our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives define who we are as a firm. They are a vital part of business, not only for our employees but our clients as well. We aim to involve every member of Dehns in our CSR programme to promote the core values and behaviours that underpin our identity.

Our People

Dehns has a diverse workforce drawing on expertise from a wide range of technical and commercial sectors. We value the individuality of our people as we believe that this encourages an ethos of creativity and excellence that benefits both colleagues and clients.

We encourage our people to work together with mutual respect as we believe that this provides an environment within which to develop. We provide a stimulating environment for our many trainees which proves very successful as evidenced by the many prizes that have been awarded to our trainees for their exceptional examination performance.

Diversity and inclusion

Dehns is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to providing equal opportunities throughout employment with us, including in the recruitment, training and promotion of employees, and to eliminating discrimination in the workplace, whether on grounds of gender, marital status, sexual orientation, colour, racial or ethnic origins, nationality, religion or belief, disability or age.

All job applicants and employees are treated equally and we make every effort to make reasonable adjustments where appropriate for disabled applicants and employees.

We are proud members of IP Inclusive. IP Inclusive is a network of Intellectual Property professionals working to make our community more equal, diverse and inclusive.

We are also committed members of Inclusive Employers. Established in 2011, Inclusive Employers are experts on workplace inclusion. They are a leading membership organisation for employers who are committed to prioritising inclusion and creating truly inclusive workplaces.

Community Investment

We fully understand the importance of community investment as a way of contributing to the social, economic and environmental well-being of the people around whom we work. Dehns provides benefits to our local communities in a number of ways.

Many of our attorneys are ‘STEM Ambassadors’ and spend time in schools and colleges to promote careers in STEM subjects. They also provide guidance and education through interactive workshops and talks. Many others at Dehns also strongly encourage student-focused activities, such as work experience, to learn more about different career options and promote other roles in the firm such as marketing, finance and IT, and secretarial and paralegal roles.

Dehns attorneys often present to science undergraduates and postgraduates, describing the role of a patent attorney and providing introductory seminars for university students considering a career in IP. We also offer an annual, paid, two week summer placement scheme to university students. Our scheme is run so that successful applicants gain as much exposure to what it is like to work at Dehns as possible. We mirror the way in which a trainee comes into the Firm, so individuals are assigned a “buddy” (a trainee patent or trade mark attorney) to assist them. They also get to work on live cases, spread over a number of fee-earners to show them the variety of work that they could be involved in as a trainee patent or trade mark attorney.

Environmental Sustainability

We are conscious of our environmental impact and actively work to embed sustainability into our business and improve our environmental performance. We do this in a number of ways:

Measurement of Scope 1, 2, and Scope 3 emissions
Strategy and reduction planning
Stakeholder and supplier engagement
Governance, and progress reporting

We’re proud to be a Planet Mark Certified Business. Planet Mark is an internationally recognised leader in net zero certification, with years of experience in helping businesses to reduce emissions and secure net zero targets. Planet Mark is officially recognised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a Cooperative Climate Initiative and is a partner of the UN High-level Climate Champions. Its process and mark is recognised by government and business standards, driving assurance in sustainable progress.

Being Planet Mark Certified means that we have taken the first step towards achieving net zero, at a critical time for our planet. As part of our commitment to making Dehns more sustainable, we have been measuring carbon emissions with Planet Mark since 2021.

To progress on the journey to net zero, it is important that we measure the full inventory of our carbon footprint as we cannot manage what we do not measure. As a Planet Mark Certified Business, we are therefore committed to increasing our reporting parameters each year, to eventually understand the carbon emissions associated with all our business activities, across our entire value chain. This is an important step on our journey to net zero as an organisation’s sustainability journey is also a measurement journey.

Once we know our total carbon footprint, we will be able to establish net zero targets and work towards achieving a 90% reduction across our Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, to achieve net zero.

As part of being Planet Mark Certified, we are committed to achieving an annual 5% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions as well as minimum thresholds for data quality to ensure rigour in our measurement.

“Planet Mark Certified – Business” is the first milestone in Planet Mark’s Net Zero Certification Programme.

Take a look at our latest Planet Mark certificate for our 2024/2025 reporting year to learn more about our measurement journey.

Additional Environmental and Sustainability Certifications and Reports

EcoVadis

As part of our commitment to meeting not only our own corporate sustainability goals, but also those of our clients, Dehns regularly submits data to EcoVadis. More and more companies, including our clients, are under immense pressure to include details of carbon footprint through the supply chain as part of their overall ESG reporting. By completing the EcoVadis assessment and sharing transparency about our sustainability practices, we’re able to showcase our compliance and demonstrate that we are an environmentally responsible service provider.

EcoVadis recognises companies that have completed the EcoVadis assessment process and demonstrated a strong management system that addresses sustainability criteria, as outlined in the EcoVadis methodology.

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)

CDP is a global non-profit that runs the world’s only independent environmental disclosure system for companies, capital markets, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. With the world’s largest, most comprehensive dataset on environmental action, the insights that CDP holds empower investors, companies, cities, and national and regional governments to make Earth-positive decisions.

By scoring companies from D to A, CDP facilitates a journey from disclosure, through understanding what to measure and how to take tangible, Earth-positive actions. CDP regularly raise the bar for what qualifies as environmental leadership in line with emerging science and market needs for greater environmental transparency.

Dehns is a B scored CDP company (companies are scored from D to A, with A being the most desirable score).

Heart of the City

Dehns has been a part of Heart of the City since 2020, and is a member of the Foundations for Responsible Business programme. Through this programme Dehns has been provided with support to develop a responsible business approach, focusing on people, environment and community. As long-time tenants of the City of London (since the 1980s), we are committed to building responsible business practices that will have a positive impact on our local community.

Charity

Dehns actively encourages individuals to support local charities. Since 2018, Dehns staff have raised more than £50,000 for our nominated charities.

Each year we support a number of charities, inviting everyone in the Firm to nominate a charity at both local and firm-wide levels. Nominations are then put out to the entire firm to vote on, and the charity with the most votes at each level is elected to be supported for the next 12 months.

Our firm-wide charity for 2024/25 is Cancer Research UK, who focus on working towards a world where everybody lives longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer. Our local office charities are:

Brighton – JustLife
Bristol – Young Bristol
London – FoodCycle
Manchester – Lifeshare
Munich – LBV
Oslo – Sykehusklovnene
Oxford and Birmingham – Aspire Oxfordshire

Through our ‘Charity & Social’ group, made up of Dehns employees, we organise regular fundraising initiatives, from dress-down days and bake-offs, cycling week-ends and a “Dehns dash” event, to regular annual events such as Christmas Jumper Day, our end of year Christmas party raffle and our online spring quiz.

Individuals participating in their own charitable events, such as running a marathon or other sporting fundraiser, are also encouraged to invite colleagues to support them. Contributions by our own members are matched by the Partners’ Charitable Fund (PCF). The Dehns Partnership aims to be a responsible member in the community. Each year an amount of money is allocated to match donations raised by Dehns employees for the firm-wide and local office nominated charities. In addition, it will also match fundraising amounts pledged by Dehns employees to individual employees who participate in charitable events to raise money for their own nominated charity.