Boult Wade Tennant
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Community

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The Soup Kitchen has an amazing team of people, it was an unforgettable experience.

Emma Hewson
SENIOR ASSOCIATE
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View our carbon and energy report, 2022-2023 here.

We have a robust responsible business strategy that underpins our approach to our society and the environment – it is something we take very seriously. A committee of volunteers, organised into several steering groups, ensures that our objectives are translated into actions and this team keeps us heading in the right direction. We are committed to improving the lives of our staff and making a positive impact on our direct and local community, and internationally. 

  • The London office move has resulted in a 30% reduction of carbon emissions.
  • We have achieved a 87% reduction in paper consumption between 2018 and 2024.
  • We support employee giving through payroll giving.
  • The London office is BREEAM excellent.
  • Billable-time-equivalent recognition for time committed to charities and sustainability projects.
  • Reduced our printing capacity between 2018 to 2022 by 75%.
  • Using the Cloud to reduce our carbon footprint.
  • We support the City of London Corporation’s Plastic Free City scheme and have eliminated all single use plastic from our London office.
  • Donating to Movember.
  • Introduction of volunteering policy.

Case studies

We don’t use single use plastic in our offices, something that has been well received by our employees. As a firm we don’t want to contribute to the plastic litter that kills birds and sea mammals. Instead, we provide things such as water bottles and travel mugs, we use glass pint milk bottles and caterers that use environmentally friendly packaging.

Boult is a member of The Legal Sustainability Alliance (LSA), a leading sustainability network for law firms. The network shares information so we can learn best practice from law colleagues to tackle the climate crisis.

Even though we have used recycled paper for at least a decade we wanted to further reduce our consumption of paper. We initially removed personal printers and reduced the number of general use printers. We have now moved on to encouraging the use of tablets instead of notebooks. One day we hope to be able to report zero paper use.

Following the move away from using paper-based files, the roller racking in our Reading office had become obsolete. Rather than consigning the racks to landfill, Dave Camble and the facilities team decided to find a home for them in the local area with a charity. New Beginnings Reading, a charity based just ten minutes from our office, were approached with the idea, and were the perfect fit as the new owners of the racking.

“New Beginnings were the first people I spoke to when trying to find a new home for the racking. I felt the combination of services they provide to the local community were really important, and I’m delighted we could help in some way. It’s great to see our racking in place, storing something far more meaningful than just files!” Dave Camble, Facilities Assistant

Boult has partnered with One Tribe to make a difference to the planet, and to protect rainforests globally. Every invoice raised by Boult includes a donation from us to One Tribe. That money is then certified by One Tribe and transferred to their conservation partners, through whom it is allocated to rainforest projects to protect trees, prevent deforestation, and reduce and store CO2 from our atmosphere.

In 2019 as part of the re-location of the London office to Salisbury Square, the decision was made to source a new coffee supplier. We wanted the company to be environmentally friendly and have sustainability goals. iKhofi began in 2011 and is a family-run business, set up by two sisters who continue to head up the operation. When it comes to the planet, being as kind as possible is always iKhofi’s priority. iKhofi tracks their performance in relation to the environment and people and provides regular updates on the impact of their products to end-users. Their coffee is sourced through ethical means, working with Fairtrade coffee producers internationally and donating a percentage of the sale of each bag of beans to charity to charity, assisting the development of sustainable coffee farms across Rwanda. We are delighted to have found a coffee supplier that mirrors our own values towards sustainability and community. We are pleased that our partnership supports coffee growing communities globally (while guaranteeing great tasting coffee for our staff!).

At Boult, we believe that our sustainable outlook begins with our choice of office space. When moving to a new premises for our London head office in 2019, the sustainability credentials of candidate building were of particular importance in our selection process. Accordingly, our new headquarters at 8 Salisbury Square being BREEAM excellent accredited was a key reason in its eventual selection.

BREEAM is the world’s leading science-based suite of validation and certification systems for sustainable built environment. They provide a third-party certified standard to assess environment performance from design through construction, to use and refurbishment. ​​

We are also pleased that 8 Salisbury Square won an International Green Apple Environment Award in the Beautiful Buildings 2022 campaign. The Green Apple Awards are run by The Green Organisation – an international, independent, non-profit, non-political environment group that began in 1994 to recognise, reward and promote environmental best practice around the world.

Soup Kitchen

Established in 1986, The Soup Kitchen is a resource for the homeless, elderly, lonely and vulnerable in London. The Soup Kitchen provides free nutritious meals, clothing, toiletries and a sense of belonging to over 150 guests each day. Boult began supporting The Soup Kitchen in the summer of 2022, when Partner Oliver Rutt and Senior Associate Naomi Jenkins attended a volunteering session with the Kitchen as a trial. They spent the morning preparing and then serving food for the Kitchen’s guests. With that trial proving a great success, we have established a regular monthly morning slot – on the first Tuesday of each month – for members of our team to visit the Kitchen and support their volunteering efforts.

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