Governance & Leadership

Day-to-day, the ESG Leadership Group will actively challenge and champion ESG at all levels of the business, help remove barriers to progress, and support the establishment of ESG policies, procedures and metrics. Members of the ESG Leadership Group include DWF’s Group Chief Operating Officer and as a minimum, appropriate representatives from Company Secretariat, Client Development, Facilities, Property & Procurement, Finance, Risk and HR.

The ESG Leadership Group identifies and, via the Group Head of ESG, reports quarterly to the Executive Board on ESG risks and opportunities, and actions needed to improve ESG in line with the ESG Strategy and evolving internal and external stakeholder expectations.

The role and purpose of the Commercial Conflicts Committee is to ensure that any unresolved commercial conflict is given unbiased consideration based on evidence, fact or business case. The objective is to ensure that the global positioning of DWF, the contractual expectations of its clients, and the commercial opportunities and best outcomes for the DWF Group are sought and supported. The committee meet no less than twice per year.

Due to the ongoing war following Russia's invasion on Ukraine, we have established a Risk & Sanctions Committee that the ESG Leadership Group cohesively work with to enhance who we represent and engage with. The Risk & Sanctions Committee's responsibilities include continually review our global processes and policies, to act as a sounding board on all client take-on and new business decisions, where necessary and to ensure that all new business decisions are taken in line with our ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) strategy and our commitment to ethical business.

Working with Business in the Community, the largest business-led membership organisation dedicated to responsible business, we are undertook a comprehensive materiality assessment to identify the ESG risks and opportunities that are most important for our Group and our stakeholders to inform our new ESG Strategy. The approach we are taking aligns with external ESG frameworks including GRI, SASB and the UN Global Compact. 

We followed a four-stage process: 

1. desk-based research to create a "long list" of material issues 
2. stakeholder mapping and interviews with internal and external stakeholders to ensure diverse insight and perspectives and prioritise the most material issues 
3. validate the draft materiality matrix through additional stakeholder engagement 
4. use the completed materiality assessment to inform our ESG Strategy to 2030.

A systematic approach to materiality will enable us to effectively drive the implementation of our new ESG Strategy across our business, measure whether the changes we implement are having an effect, and so better respond to stakeholder expectations. The final materiality matrix will clearly illustrate the ESG issues that our materiality assessment suggests are important to our Group. We are committed to working closely with all our stakeholders and will review our materiality matrix at least every two years to ensure our approach remains fit for purpose. The materiality matrix can also be used by our stakeholders to understand the focus of our approach and track our progress.