LEGAL
Our Action Plan
Ashurst's role: Understanding our role, building knowledge to inspire and moving beyond compliance
Formalising our strategy
Ashurst formed this Modern Slavery Action Plan in 2019 to create a legacy for our founder William Ashurst and his four daughters' abolitionist efforts 200 years ago. Based on the below three principles, our aim was to build a framework for our firm to establish where we could best understand our role in the ongoing battle to combat all forms of modern slavery.
- Understanding our role in the global anti-slavery movement
- Building our knowledge to inspire change
- Moving beyond compliance
Since then, we have built up award winning work in both pro bono and social impact, and it is time to update our plan to reflect and build upon what we have learned. The next stage in our journey is to dig deeper into our areas of success and continue to grow our knowledge and expertise with our people, clients and communities.
1. Understanding our role in the global anti-slavery movement
"Since launching our Action Plan Ashurst has partnered with anti-slavery organisations around the world - learning from them, supporting their everyday operations and substantive work through Pro bono and Social Impact projects, and reflecting on ways to drive change through our purchasing power."
Karen Davies, Global Chair
| Objectives | Implementing actions | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
Understand our role in addressing Modern Slavery | Critically examine all aspects of modern slavery to understand where we can best play a role as a global law firm | Global Pro Bono & Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager Risk & Compliance |
Continue to monitor our pro bono practice for opportunities to expand or mirror existing work across additional jurisdictions | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono | |
Collaborate and work in partnership with not-for-profits leading efforts in the anti-slavery movement to understand their work and achieve maximum impact | Maintain meaningful partnerships with organisations in the anti-slavery movement; understand their aspirations, priorities and challenges; and work with them to leverage Ashurst's resources and stakeholders in respect of these needs | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager |
Implement pro bono and social impact projects through which we can support the infrastructure and programmatic work of anti-slavery not-for-profits | Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager | |
Build on our efforts to support the work of existing anti-slavery networks | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager | |
Understand where we can support survivors of slavery | Continue our work with organisations in the anti-slavery movement to understand the issues facing those affected by slavery and our place in assisting them | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager |
Provide pro bono assistance to survivors of modern slavery, including by partnering with specialist organisations that work with survivors | Counsel, Pro Bono | |
Provide programmatic opportunities to survivors of modern slavery | Senior Social Impact Manager | |
Collaborate with the legal and business community to leverage and maximise all work in this space | Collaborate with the wider legal community and identify potential opportunities to combine resources to combat slavery | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono Risk & Compliance Procurement |
Engage with the broader business community on issues relevant to modern slavery to enable cross-collaboration and maximising of resources | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Ashurst Partners | |
Ensure our people engage with anti-slavery efforts | Encourage approved Social Investment hours on volunteering leave to encourage wider engagement with anti-slavery efforts | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner |
Celebrate 'Anti-Slavery Day' and use other events as opportunities to support anti-slavery initiatives and update all employees on our progress | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager | |
Provide meaningful opportunities for our people to engage with anti-slavery efforts through: (i) directly supporting organisations working with survivors of modern slavery, and (ii) empowering them to ask questions and make informed purchasing decisions that contribute to reducing the risk of modern slavery, both within the firm and personally. | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager |
2. Building our knowledge to inspire change
"When we launched our Modern Slavery Action Plan, we committed to build knowledge internally around every aspect of modern slavery which, I am proud to say, is ongoing through our regular training, pro bono and social impact work. We continue our commitment to build our knowledge in recognition that the more our Ashurst community knows, the more we can raise awareness and inspire our clients, colleagues and other stakeholders to support the eradication of modern slavery."
Paul Jenkins, Global CEO
A key learning from our pro bono practice has been the importance of thinking about how to capture and retain knowledge in each project in ways that allow other Ashurst lawyers to train up and participate in future work. We have also seen the cumulative impact on those projects as lawyers not only build knowledge but then begin to push themselves to learn more and be of assistance in even more complex cases as a result.
We continue to build, capture and share knowledge across Ashurst from a number of different perspectives:
- As an employer of people with skills: ensuring we provide sufficient information and insight to all of the people who work at Ashurst so that they understand why work in this area is important and can identify ways to apply their skills to the modern slavery movement.
- As advisers: every lawyer or business services professional we train up on modern slavery issues becomes a double sided tool - they can support anti-slavery organisations to achieve change through pro bono and non-legal support. They can also apply that knowledge in advising our commercial clients to achieve further change, recognising that modern slavery risks apply to each client in varying ways across the environmental, social and governance spectrum.
- As a business with supply chains and purchasing: our key decision makers must continue pushing beyond basic regulatory compliance in respect of supply chains; and anyone at Ashurst who makes an ad hoc work-related purchase should be provided with enough knowledge to ask the right questions and make the necessary checks about the provenance of those items.
- As individual purchasers: as an employer of over 3,500 people with additional stakeholders well beyond that number, every hour our people spend on learning not only impacts on decisions as a business but also as individuals, with the potential to inform their own purchasing decisions and inspire them to push for change where supply chain concerns emerge.
| Objectives | Implementing actions | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
Develop a global knowledge-sharing infrastructure to enable our people to understand modern slavery | Continue to share knowledge and strategically embed our modern slavery work into our unique culture, so that everyone at Ashurst learns more about modern slavery | Pro Bono Manager Senior Social Impact Manager Risk & Compliance |
Identify opportunities to bring in specialist not-for-profits, including partner organisations, to share knowledge with our people | Pro Bono Manager Senior Social Impact Manager | |
Encourage internal communities of practice to build and share knowledge around elements of modern slavery, that will allow us to move the dial as a collective | Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager | |
Invite our stakeholders to join us on our learning journey | Report on our progress | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner |
Engage with commercial clients to consider synergies around modern slavery | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Ashurst Partners Risk & Compliance |
3. Moving beyond compliance
"By training everyone at Ashurst to make informed purchasing decisions and comply with our obligations as a firm, we lay the foundation to do more. Once somebody appreciates the sheer scale of modern slavery and range of ways it can present, they are more inclined to ask: what else can we do to stop this?"
Murielle Marseille, Chief Risk Officer
| Objectives | Implementing actions | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|
Comply with our global reporting requirements as a business in relation to modern slavery | Comply with reporting requirements in each jurisdiction that has requirements | Financial Crime & Risk |
Consider how we can go beyond reporting requirements in each jurisdiction, including mapping suppliers and reviewing contracts | Financial Crime & Risk Risk Assessment & Business Protection Procurement | |
Ensure that all relevant activities across Ashurst are captured for the above reporting purposes | Ensure that all relevant Ashurst policies reference and enable our compliance with modern slavery regulations, and introduce new policies as required | Financial Crime & Risk Risk Assessment & Business Protection Procurement |
Review internal processes and update where necessary to ensure activities are captured for reporting purposes | Financial Crime & Risk Risk Assessment & Business Protection Procurement | |
Capture activities on our new global social impact reporting platform and our 3E time recording system and ensure they are referenced in annual reporting on compliance activities | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono Senior Social Impact Manager | |
Encourage all departments to consider how we can build on these activities to move beyond basic compliance | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner | |
Risk Disclosure | Report any risks we might have and how we have dealt with these | Risk Assessment & Business Protection |
Human Rights Due Diligence | Conduct human rights risk assessments and review findings | Risk Assessment & Business Protection |
Remediation Planning | Plan corrective actions including complaint handling | Financial Crime & Risk Risk Assessment & Business Protection |
Build and share knowledge on compliance framework | Support the compliance-focused community of practice to share their knowledge with each other and the rest of Ashurst | Counsel, Pro Bono |
Consider how we can work with our clients around compliance (inform, advise and enable) | Identify where we can convene gatherings and other activities through which insight and best practice can be shared across industries | Senior Social Impact Manager |
Continue to build our own knowledge and expertise to ensure we can be the best commercial adviser to our commercial clients in this area | Ashurst Partners and Lawyers | |
Advise commercial clients on key considerations for Modern Slavery reporting | Ashurst Partners and Lawyers | |
Look for opportunities to deploy this compliance knowledge and expertise through our pro bono work with not-for-profit organisations | Global Pro Bono and Social Impact Partner Counsel, Pro Bono |