IP Blog / Dennemeyer's commitment to sustainable business

Dennemeyer's commitment to sustainable business

Dennemeyer Group May 14, 2024 Read time: 5 minutes

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Now more than ever, companies of every size and industry need to take action to mitigate their environmental impact to ensure a cleaner, brighter future. Our core business principles dictate a moral imperative that ties economic sustainability directly to ecological sustainability.

At the Dennemeyer Group, we are committed to helping all our clients achieve their green targets in Intellectual Property (IP). That is why our consultants and attorneys incorporate the latest sustainability approaches into their advice and practice.

However, it is not enough for us to support others if we do not also look at ourselves. Striving for excellence in all matters of IP entails important obligations – obligations that are inherent in our values of entrepreneurship, ownership and accountability. We believe that taking responsibility for our environmental and social presence is the recipe for a successful and sustainable business.

Commitment and direction

To inform our sustainability expectations, we have placed environmental, social and governance (ESG) processes at the heart of our business approach:

Evaluating and minimizing our environmental footprint
Reducing our emission production and resource consumption
Offering and maintaining a welcoming and secure workplace for diverse teams
Building and honoring long-term partnerships based on trust and respect

csm_Dennemeyer_s-achievements-in-sustainability_08_a82a87e13b — Dennemeyer is committed to recycling and upcycling waste while reducing the total resources consumed by regular business operations. We seek to do this by taking actions such as buying "pre-loved" furniture and extending the useful life of electronics.

Achieving these goals requires trackable engagement and consistent transparency. Thus, we are proud to have joined the United Nations Global Compact initiative. In this way, we reaffirm our dedication to advancing a sustainable philosophy and practice. Complementing this endeavor, our environmental performance has recently been recognized by EcoVadis, with our targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

By participating in the UN Global Compact, we have pledged to reflect continuously on all business decisions, comparing them against our moral compass and green goals. Only through regular monitoring of both ourselves and the evolving regulatory framework can we faithfully evaluate the Group's position and determine where improvements can be made.

Assisting us in this undertaking is our new partner, forward earth, offering a Corporate Carbon Footprint (CCF) tool that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help companies calculate and monitor greenhouse gas emissions and drive decarbonization based on a TÜV-certified methodology. By focusing on improving data collection, reducing manual effort and staying updated on the growing and changing requirements of ESG reporting, we are ensuring that our sustainability efforts remain a central and seamless part of our business practice.

Empowering suppliers and small businesses

For an objective measure of this progress, it is vital for Dennemeyer to be able to rely on independent bodies. Founded in 2007, EcoVadis is among the world's most prominent and trusted assessors of ESG metrics, having rated more than 130,000 companies to date. Their business sustainability scores consider over 200 spend categories in a methodology that draws upon the Global Reporting Initiative, the UN Global Compact and ISO 26000. EcoVadis awards medals to those companies that demonstrate measurable success across multiple areas, recognizing their commendable business management.

csm_Dennemeyer_s-achievements-in-sustainability_10_65fb11b4c5 — We have dedicated ourselves to honoring the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact in the way we do business. By submitting annual progress reports, we can track the effectiveness of our efforts and demonstrate the transparency needed for meaningful change.

We take ESG reporting to our stakeholders seriously: Dennemeyer* was awarded an EcoVadis Bronze Rating in June 2023, standing as a testament to our commitment and progress toward being a sustainable IP partner for our clients and stakeholders. We are proud to showcase that our global team implements and supports future-focused changes for the environment and for our social world.

Dennemeyer has been praised for exceeding the average score in all four assessment categories: environment, labor and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement. On top of this, we also surpassed our own expectations, proving that a focused mentality and a firm conviction have placed us in an even stronger position for future accomplishments. And it is to the future that we are turning our attention as we work to further decrease our carbon footprint. Last year, EcoVadis placed Dennemeyer in the top 24% of companies in the "office administrative and support activities industry" in terms of environmental record and the top 20% for overall rating. Beyond 2024, we plan to do even better.

Looking ahead

Along the way, adopting and meeting science-based targets for emissions reduction will be invaluable. Here, the SBTi leads the way in helping companies set such goals, accelerating business toward net zero before 2050. This global body is a collaborative endeavor of the UN Global Compact, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the World Resources Institute (WRI), the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and the We Mean Business Coalition.

csm_Dennemeyer_s-achievements-in-sustainability_09_a37e390cf7 — Switching to renewable energy in offices helps further reduce our everyday carbon footprint. Meanwhile, mindful travel options that produce less emissions let us stay in touch with clients and colleagues in an environmentally conscious way.

Dennemeyer's pledge has been approved by the SBTi as we play our part in reinforcing a commercial "ambition loop" that will drive the global economy in the direction of positive change. By 2030, we aim to shrink our Scope 1 (direct, in-house) and Scope 2 (indirect, upstream) greenhouse gas emissions by 42% compared to 2021. Moreover, we will work to lower our Scope 3 (business-proximal) emissions within the same timeframe. Notably, "carbon offsetting" does not count in meeting our target, as there are no shortcuts to meaningful gains.

In joining the movement for greener business models, we see tremendous benefits not only for Dennemeyer but also for our clients, colleagues and partners. A far-sighted management policy inevitably merges the ecological with the financial as the two become increasingly symbiotic in near-future economies.

The road ahead is not as long as it might initially seem, and everyone at Dennemeyer has worked hard to reach this point. Together, we will continue this momentum, innovating and advancing as we always have. Because delivering the highest-quality IP services should not come at the cost of the natural world.

_{*The EcoVadis rating appears in the account of Dennemeyer & Co Sarl (Group). The reported figures and documents relate to the Dennemeyer Group.}

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