E094 - Karli Hiscock from Bates Wells

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Carly, thank you so much for joining the Green Elements podcast. You work for Batesworth. And you're a law firm. Could you tell us a bit about you and who Bates Wells are, please?

Yeah, of course. Thanks for inviting me to be part of the podcast. So Bates Wells, we established in 1970 and we are a full-service law firm. I'm a partner in the real estate team at Bates Wells, and we're a bit unusual really. We call ourselves a city firm with a difference. And we refer a lot to having a positive impact, which isn't something that most law firms probably outwardly say. But when we were established in 1970, there were a clear set of core principles that the firm was founded on, and it could be basically sort of summarized as doing good work for good people. Inevitably, since 1970, we've evolved a lot. And we embedded a much more kind of outward-looking set of values, and we live by our purpose and values. And when we're in the office together, we've got a lot of branding around our values around, around the firm so that we can see them all and we remember them all. And as part of that journey, we became a B Corp in 2015, so that now embeds our values into what we do. And we really have a lot of synergy with our clients, we have a lot of impact-driven businesses. So that's kind of us in a nutshell, but we are a full-service law firm with a twist.

And do you think the fact that you're a B Corp has made any difference to, you know, to you as a company, as the people that work within it, and also how you work with clients?

Yeah, I think it has. I mean, the timing worked brilliantly for me because I joined the firm in 2014, so I could, as a new person at the time when we became a B Corp, I think I could really see that transition, that the firm I joined was very enthusiastic, very purpose-driven, very values-driven, But by becoming a B Corp, it just brought it all to the forefront of everybody's minds. So everybody in the entire firm, you know, we've got 250+ people in our firm, everybody started talking more regularly and more confidently about our values. So I think that made a real difference. And I think the accountability of being a B Corp also makes a real difference, that you become a lot more conscious of always living by those values that you've promised to uphold. And then I think there is a huge amount of synergy, as I've said, with our clients. So we act for more charities than any other law firm, but that again has evolved into social enterprises. And then because of the B Corp movement, we have a huge impact-driven base now. And I think it makes a lot more difference— a lot of difference, I should say— that we, because we're a B Corp and we do— we are a values-driven firm, we're able to have those conversations with our clients and really understand what they're about. And there's a lot more synergy with our culture. So I think although our day job is providing legal advice, it makes a huge amount of difference to be able to really understand what our clients do in their own businesses and what they're seeking to achieve.

Do you think the advice you give clients changes, is different if you're a purpose-driven business or not?

That's a really interesting question because I think, I mean, ultimately the law is the law. We're advising on the law, but I think we do tailor our advice differently to all of our clients because there are other issues that affect them. In the same way that when we're giving advice to corporate bodies, that will be different to our charity clients because the legislation is different. But I think for impact businesses, our advice probably does differ because we're focused on what their aims are. and how to help them get there. I suppose a recent example would be real estate law. We always have a bit of a joke in the department that the law doesn't really ever change for us because we're still working on 1925 Acts and 1954 Acts. And actually, we don't think that the law has caught up sufficiently with impact-driven businesses and actually the way the world is now and what people need. So we've had a look at our impact-driven clients and real estate, and we've looked at putting together model form leases and precedent clauses and things that are actually focused on those types of businesses. So particularly majoring on the landlord and tenant relationship and how buildings should become more sustainable and how you can embed things into your lease to make that happen.

That's interesting, so because we've had a few clients that have only being allowed to move into their new buildings because they are sustainable. But what we have found interesting is it's all talk. So therefore they've got all this stuff in their lease and they really— because they are genuinely being sustainable, they get really excited about moving into this new building. and we can't get hold of the electricity data. They're not actually monitoring the gas usage. They don't really think about the air conditioning when it turns on and off. And that cycle to work, the cycle storage and the cycle to work policy that they expected everyone to have when they moved into that building actually doesn't make any difference at all. And so, and I guess I don't really know what I'm saying, but is there a way that you can It's really disheartening to a company if they move into a building that they think is going to be really environmental and it turns out the landlord is just kind of vetting people and going, actually, we can, we can command a higher price if we ask for a more sustainable company, whereas we don't actually care about sustainability anyway.

Greenwashing.

I guess it is a form of greenwashing, isn't it? But it's the reverse greenwashing.

Yeah, I think that's really challenging and I can see how frustrating that is. I think just on a, not a legal point, but a general point that we've been hosting seminars and things on this area for years now. And I remember when we first started them, when we had tenant clients or tenant contacts in the room, they would be saying, well, this is expensive to be in a sustainable building. This is going to cost us more potentially. And we would be saying, well, yeah, the market knowledge is saying that landlords may charge a premium for their tenants moving into business— to buildings like that, which is exactly what you've just said. And also, if landlords are having to manage their services in such a way that they're really making an effort with green energy and, you know, better lighting, LCD lighting, or better air quality, that kind of thing, recycling schemes, then inevitably their service charge might be higher. So it was always a discussion with tenants of, well, this is a kind of longer-term trade-off that you're looking for, that if you really want to live by these principles and you're going to be in the building for a long time, then actually the higher cost will hopefully be worth it because actually energy costs will eventually go down over the lifetime of your lease. And then landlords would say to us, what's in it for us? Why would we do this if it's all going to be more costly to start with? Why would we do it? So again, the flip argument is, well, you might be able to attract a higher premium and actually don't you want a better relationship with your tenants. And I think in our early conversations, there was always a little bit of a feeling in the room of, this is quite interesting, we'd quite like to do it, but it's just too expensive. Thankfully, what we're seeing is actually the conversation is evolving and landlords are much— well, we've seen landlords being much more collaborative with tenants and building a much longer-term relationship. So it's not a really quick flow of people. It's actually how can we make the whole building work together almost as a community. But you will still find inevitably some landlords are saying they've done certain things when actually you get in there and it isn't quite as you expect. If there's something in your lease that tells you it should be there, then you have a legal argument to, to resolve it, to try and resolve it with your landlord. But again, it's not necessarily that people will want to get into a dispute territory. But it's always worth trying to have that conversation with their landlords or the building management. I think that's The key between the two is the building management. Even if the landlords want to achieve certain things, they need to make sure that their building managers, and if they've got, say, a surveying firm providing that service for them, they really understand what the aim is. Otherwise you get this disconnect.

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes complete sense. What would you say your business superpower was?

Oh, so I'm not in charge of the firm.

Caveat.

Massive lawyer caveat, not in charge of the firm. But I, and again, I think, I suppose I'm relatively new to the firm, which I know sounds odd given I joined in 2014, but we have people staying a long time. So I'm still kind of a relative newbie, but I think that helps me to say that in my view, the superpower power is the transparency. There is a genuine transparency throughout the firm that, yes, we have a management board, yes, we have people that are ultimately in charge of making decisions, but everything is very clearly communicated and a huge amount of work has gone into always improving the communication. And I think that has helped us weather this particular period of time. incredibly well. We've all stayed connected, we all know what's going on, there isn't any need for, you know, rumours around what's going to happen when we're all working through lockdown. It's very transparent, and I think that also embeds our values. So I think that's our secret power. I think it's transparency and values.

Okay, and how would you say you engage with staff, suppliers, customers with your mission and purpose?

I think the communication channels that I've mentioned are key. So on a really kind of, I suppose, basic level, that we have the firm's intranet, which I know, you know, most places have now, and that's always regularly updated. So with key things about what's going on in the firm, and everybody's very motivated about driving forward the values and Someone is always getting involved in various impact-driven initiatives, so that's kind of always publicised on the internet. We often have, you know, the usual things like newsletters, snapshots type things. I think with— in terms of our internal communication, we try and keep things really snappy so that if there's something really exciting to report, an exciting update, that might be a quick email, but also put it on the intranet. We've got screens in the kitchen, you know, when we're all together, that can be used to publicize things. And people— we are open plan, so everybody does talk about what's going on, and that kind of conversation is just flowing throughout the firm. And I think with clients and other contacts, we do rely a lot on the newsletters, the kind of email mailing shots, LinkedIn, Twitter. all of those communication channels, and I think because it's so regular and because we really are in the impact space, we are just communicating this stuff all the time. So I actually need to get a lot better at LinkedIn. I need to engage with it a lot more, but that's— yeah, those kind of channels are the way we tend to do it.

I remember I first came across you guys years ago when we were becoming a B Corp back in 2015, And I was worried about changing our M&A, memorandum of association. I didn't know how to do it. And I spoke to someone in your firm and they basically said, it's really easy. This is what you do. We couldn't possibly charge you for that. And they told us, I was like, oh, that's amazing. What a cool firm. That's brilliant. And it was actually really easy.

Yeah, I think, you know, on the B Corp status, it's interesting because I've had people say to me before, does it not change things for the worse in some, in some senses? You know, there's a lot of work involved, and does it not change your whole business? And I think if your business is thinking of becoming a B Corp, then you're really already in that space and you're already doing things in that way. And it's a lot of work, but it's worth it. And I think it's really motivating when it happens. But yeah, you're exactly right, we support people on their B Corp journey and at the moment we're doing quite a lot of work around the reassessment and how we can support clients through that. And as you said, you know, we don't charge a fortune, sometimes not at all. You were lucky then.

I think I was, I think I was. When it comes to running an ethical and sustainable business, What would you say your biggest struggles so far have been, and can you tell us a bit about how you've overcome it?

Yeah, I think on the ethical side, I think there is a challenge in terms of our business is providing legal advice. You know, we're not marketing a product, we're not manufacturing a product or marketing a product, which which you can say has a certain certification of this is ethical, this is ethically sourced, this is sustainable material. So I think a challenge for us as a law firm is actually proving that we do live by these principles. And I think the B Corp status is fundamental to that because, as you say, you have to change your governing documents to make sure that you do live by that. I think the other side of it is sometimes, you know, in terms of the ethical status, people could see a grey area in terms of, you know, what cases do you take on, which clients you might act for. But we have really rigorous processes in our firm to make sure that— we have an ethics committee. You know, if there's anything that we think won't live by our standards, then we have to really rigorously assess it. And in terms of sustainability, I think on a really basic level, one of the biggest challenges to start with is making sure that people use less paper. Law firms are notorious for having huge amounts of paper, particularly in my department. But we did a lot of work around becoming sustainable and we've already— I think we reduced our carbon footprint by 50% in 3 years with your help, I believe. So we've done a lot of work around that, but I think there's a challenge in terms of making sure that people are willing to adapt their working practices. There's also a challenge in sustainability of when you are part of a multi-tenanted building, which we are, that there are some difficulties about, you know, systems and processes that we might want something for our space, but actually for it to work effectively, you have to have it in the whole building, which involves a lot of work and a lot of conversation, but we've got an amazing facilities team. So they're always on the case.

If you could offer one piece of advice to our listeners that can help them with their purpose, what do you think that would be?

I think be brave and have conviction in your purpose and kind of regularly take a step back and remind yourself about what you are trying to achieve and why you first went into it. Because I think it's easy to kind of lose your way sometimes when you get bogged down in the day-to-day work, whatever your role is and whatever your business is. So I think it's reminding yourself what you want to achieve and then being brave enough to keep saying it and keep reminding yourself and keep telling everyone about it. Otherwise, no one's going to know. Okay.

When it comes to reducing your environmental impact, and the carbon footprint of your business, what would you say your biggest challenge or frustration is?

I think getting everyone's buy-in, and I think that's changed hugely. I think people are really on board. I think going open plan made a huge difference because you can just see how everybody's working, and, you know, it's It's weird to think, it almost feels like a lifetime ago when I'm talking about us being in the office, because it's been so long since we were there. But I think in the early stages of moving into the new office, and that was when we already had a lot of initiatives in our old space, but it was a very old building and you couldn't really retrofit these things. And also our landlord was about to drop the building and redevelop, so there's only so much you can do. But when we moved into the new space, and that's when we made a huge effort around green energy, changing the lighting and things, I think that didn't require buy-in from people because that was dealt with at management level and, like I said, the facilities team working with the landlord of the building. But I think the more subtle things like recycling, that does require buy-in because if you've got bins around and people are in a hurry, then there is a risk they might just drop it in and off they go to the next meeting. So I think a lot more around the communication about why we were doing it and then what we'd achieved, that helped hugely. Also, bins were taken away from people's desks, so everybody has to physically walk to one of the waste collection points and then everything is categorized. We have so many bins, but it's worthwhile and it's been properly communicated, and we now have a stat on the internet It regularly updates us on what we've managed to achieve and the fact that we're not sending things to landfill. So I think that's really motivating, but I think initially it's a bit of a challenge to get that amount of people to buy into it when everyone's very busy.

Yeah, I think it is, and I think having worked with law firms for numerous years now, I think that it's quite hard as well. with possibly not our age and younger, but possibly older generation lawyers changing their way of thinking is difficult. And yeah, it is quite hard.

Yeah, I think it's about reminding people why, why it's important. And even if something might feel a little bit inconvenient to start with, then it's It's not the end of the world. I mean, walking is good. Why don't you get up from your desk and walk to the next bin? That's something I found more challenging during lockdown. I don't have enough bins available to me to follow this through at home. The council doesn't provide it.

You need to— and it's also getting up, isn't it? You need to get one of those things that remind you to get up and go for a walk every now and again.

Exactly.

What sort of— have you got any advice or learnings that you'd like to share with anyone listening to this podcast?

In terms of particularly focusing on B Corp status or being an impact investor?

Anything really. I think you as a partner in a very forward-thinking, socially purpose-driven law firm in the UK, you know, what if I was a lawyer or worked in a law firm in the UK or wider? We've got our audience goes around the world. You know, what sort of— have you got any advice to people to what to start to do or to look for or to push forward?

Yeah, I think it— I mean, obviously it depends on the size of the business as well and resources and things, but I think there's no harm in starting small. I would say that if an organization is looking at really embedding a certain way of operating, but they don't want to maybe take a step, next step of changing their articles, or if they're not in a position resource-wise to do lots of different initiatives in in their business, then I think just always focus on the small things because inevitably that evolves into something that's bigger. And I think even in, you know, businesses with one person, you can remind yourself about your purpose and why you're doing what you're doing and make sure you communicate it. I think communication is always the key. And then I think as businesses grow, always making sure that your people are on board, that you're bringing them along the journey journey and listening to their views. I don't think that it can be a kind of dictated mandate almost of this is the way we're doing it. It has to be genuine. If you are an impact-driven business, then that has to be genuine. It has to be authentic and has to be carried through your people and everything they do. So yeah, I think that's probably my takeaway piece of advice. So yeah, the other thing I was thinking of is the fact that because we're an alternative business structure, We don't have only lawyers working in the firm. We have— it's not a traditional law firm structure of partners, solicitors, and then support staff. We're an ABS, which enables us to have other advisors in the firm. So historically, we've had people focusing on compliance to help clients with setting up financial businesses, financial services. We've had impact-driven specialists, and within our firm now, we have impact professionals. So they're not, they're not actually part of the legal teams, but they help us in making sure that we understand the sector that we're working in, and they also provide a different kind of service to our clients, including the support with the B Corp reassessment.

Oh, I see. So, name drop, people like Junction, Adam Garfunkel from Junction, and people that help companies become more down the B Corp journey, you have them in-house. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, sort of. Yeah, so I mean, some of them are former lawyers, so they have that really helpful background of also they know how we think and they know therefore how to communicate things to us every time something changes. But they're just, they're really invaluable to work with because it, I guess it comes back to when you're saying, do we advise impact-driven businesses differently. I think having impact professionals and people who are really embedded in the sector more than probably lawyers will ever be, in the sense of, you know, you've got so much going on advising lots of different clients. I think having impact professionals with us means that we really stay on top of everything.

Yeah, I think, I think one of the reasons why I thought of that was when we were looking at getting our contracts, or we had our contracts, and redrawn. One of the conversations I had with, with Katie— I can't remember the lady's name, sorry— that helped us, she said that interestingly, the more purpose-driven businesses you— purpose-driven business you are, the more accountable you are.

Hmm.

So it kind of goes completely the opposite way that you think. So a company that actually doesn't care about their staff, treats them really badly, and then treats them really badly is very much more likely to get away with it. Someone that doesn't treat staff really badly and does it a tiny bit wrong and not really badly at all and actually probably really good on the lower side of things will still get into a lot of trouble and could actually be held accountable. So because you're held on a pedestal as opposed to not.

Yeah. And I think accountability is so important because if you really want to run your business in this way, then, then you should be held accountable. But it does, it does mean you have to make difficult choices sometimes and you have to really think about what type of work you're doing and the sort of initiatives that you're getting involved with. And I guess part of— I mean, part of the accountability for us is something like the Legal Sustainability Alliance. So we actually are part of the reporting. We can just put ourselves out there. And, you know, if someone's logging onto our website and saying, oh, they're a B Corp and they're living by their values and they have all this synergy with their clients, if they want to, you know, it's like, you know, someone wanted to do digging and say, do they really mean this? Do they? Then we have all of the evidence there that yes, we are doing this. every single day. And I think that's— we have not only proof of that, but we want to be held accountable. And this is the way we want to do business.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? We're seeing that in our business now with conversations that we're having with people about, say, carbon offsetting and stuff. We— I think difficult decisions are going to start to happen more and more in sustainability, and I'm seeing it in— so the previous meeting was with an industry, and I've had this conversation a few times now of, it's great that you guys want to be more sustainable, but we've got to deal with the elephant in the room. The elephant is you need to change so significantly that you're not going to recognize your business in 10 years' time. And if you're willing to do that, that's where you'll do well. And if you're not willing to do it, then you might as well just carry on as business as usual, because really all you are is greenwashing.

Mm-hmm. Your sentiments are right and you're going at it from the right values and you're not doing it for the wrong reasons, but there's kind of no point doing it if not wholeheartedly and doing it Yeah, and I wonder if, you know, the world is apparently starting to move forward again having been in lockdown, and when people talk about building back better, I think, well, maybe people have had the chance to reflect about their businesses and where they live their lives, but, you know, crucially also the way they do business, and perhaps now is the chance that we've seen all these reports with, you know, effectively people on pause, the fact that the environment's had a chance to recover, all these amazing videos I've seen online about, you know, nature making an appearance into urban environments, maybe people will think about it and go, actually, I can probably change the way I do things. And I just find it really scary, actually, that just before we went into lockdown, we were having a huge amount of information about climate change. And I, other than the fact that there's some, you know, really positive signs in the environment as a result of lockdown, other than those stories, I haven't heard anything about climate change since February.

Yeah.

I mean, I'd have to seek it out. I'm sure I could seek out articles, but whereas they were coming across, I was gonna say my desk, but my computer screen the whole time. and everybody was talking about it and there were loads of documentaries. They just don't really seem to be there, and I just hope that actually that resurrects itself and people really take it seriously.

Yeah, yeah, it will be, it will be really interesting to see what happens on the back of it. But then we're talking to a group of companies about setting 2020 as a baseline year, and granted, you cannot— not all companies can set it as a baseline year. So if you are a manufacturing You can't. It's an impossibility. But you could potentially set it if you were to normalize it in such a way that's, you know, through turnover or through amounts of products that you've produced. And so you could potentially do it that way. It's obviously a lot easier to do it as a service-based industry, which both of us are in service-based companies. And Because in reality, we do need to set 2020 as a baseline year in order to get to 2030 and beyond.

Yeah.

But the picture is just so— it's not black and white. It's driven by clients, and clients have to stand up for the same values as the people that are pitching for the work. And the clients have to go, right, you do not fly to us If you fly to us, you will be penalized. Because they know that if they fly, they'll have a better rapport because they'll go out for dinner and get to know each other and then more likely to win the work. So you almost have to put everyone on the back foot and we all have to work together. And then businesses have to work together to make sure they're all on a level playing field. And it's going to be really hard and it's going to be really messy and it's going to be really tricky. And it's not going to be easy.

No, it's that accountability again, I think, and being willing to make changes, as you said. And there's lots of brilliant initiatives out there that you can sign up to, and it helps you make those changes. We've signed up to something that actually impacts on our annual leave policy, so people get more annual leave if they are traveling on holiday by train. and they're not using the plane, so they get basically some extra holiday to take account of the fact that it's going to take longer. And people are signing up for it, which is great news.

Yeah, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. I can't remember what it's called. I know Wholegrain Digital. The Guardian wrote a piece about it and used Wholegrain Digital as a company that was doing it. If you know those guys, another B Corp.

I probably should know them. Husband and wife team, they've done really well. I don't think it was them. I don't think it's them that we've got it through.

Oh yeah, no, they are doing the same thing as you. Oh, they're doing it? Okay. Yeah, they're doing it.

I suspect we've had conversations with them as a firm then about making sure we do those things. But I think that accountability is really important. I think the B Corp movement is really interesting around that though, because I think what's brilliant about it is when you are working with an— if you're a B Corp and you're working with another B Corp, it takes that pressure off of worrying about whether or not you have that synergy, because you already know you do. You already know that you've each had to go through the same assessment criteria and make these changes to your governance documents. So you have that automatic accountability, right? Okay, we're on a level playing field here.

Yeah, and actually, mistakes happen in business. We've just joined forces with another B Corp, and I didn't realize that education doesn't have VAT, and this company didn't realize that they didn't put VAT on their invoices. So the whole thing went completely wrong when we submitted an invoice and they were literally like, we're going to lose money on this. How did that happen? And then they looked at it and they went, we don't charge VAT. And I went, we do. We can't not. And they were like, oh, no. And we completely slashed the prices and we worked together on it. But it was really, really easy. The minute— it was very much like, oh, education doesn't have VAT. Okay, fine. What can we do about it? Okay, we'll do this, this, and this. And no one was annoyed. And no one walked away feeling as if they'd been hard done by. And that is such a healthy way to do business because we'll definitely carry on working. I don't care if they made that mistake. It's not a big deal.

It happens.

It happens, and you just have to, you know.

Yeah, and coming back to why you're going into it in the first place, I mean, I've always said that as a transactional lawyer, I have that— I mean, I love the practice area I'm in because I like to problem-solve. I like to kind of look at everything as almost like a jigsaw puzzle, fit it all together. And so for my work, it means that in theory, everybody is coming to the situation wanting to go ahead. I'm not trying to unravel a problem. I'm actually trying to— they've already agreed they want this to happen, and then I'll make it happen. And yeah, there's inevitably bumps along the way. But, but you get there because you can always take a step back and say, hang on a moment, is this issue that's arisen a deal breaker? Or do you want to go back to originally, why did you go into this deal in the first place? And I guess it's the same kind of thing with your situation that you'll remember why you were doing it in the first place and go, okay, well, we'll find a way around it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it's that transparency and the accountability. Thanks, Carly. Thank you so much for being on today. It's been really interesting listening to your thoughts around Bates Wells and working in a law firm, within such a forward-thinking law firm as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Today we've got Carly from Bates Wells on the podcast. Carly is actually an advisory board member for Compare Your Footprints, our carbon reporting software, and a partner at Bates Wells. They are a really, really cool company. I mean, we came across them because we're a B Corp and so are they, and so you'll hear us talk about that and difference it makes to be a social purpose-driven law firm and the advice that they give. It's a fascinating conversation, and I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did.