Introduction

This has been a year quite unlike any other.

COVID-19 has renewed our focus on the wellbeing of our people and brought a revolution in remote and agile working that, properly managed for the future, has the potential to make our Firm and our profession accessible to a more diverse group of people. It has forced us to look again at our readiness to deal with system-wide shocks - including the future effects of climate change - and pushed us further forward in our commitment to environmental sustainability. The pandemic has also highlighted and exacerbated existing inequalities and raised the public consciousness of businesses as social actors, with both a responsibility to their people and an important role to play in tackling social injustice. I was proud to join the partnership of Charles Russell Speechlys in May this year. It makes a very powerful statement about our Firm that it chose to give a Partner a responsible business role, with a mandate to question, to challenge and to work with management, Partners and all our people to improve our social and environmental impact. Part of my new role is also to work with our clients to learn more about the environmental, social and governance (or ESG) issues that are critical for them and to ensure that we are supporting them to achieve their objectives. We do that through our traditional role as advisors, but also in being candid about our own sustainability journey, sharing what we have learned and learning from our clients in turn. While, for us and for so many of our clients, 2020/21 has been a tipping point for focus on and investment in ESG issues, we are all just at the beginning of a journey. Over the coming years, particularly as we get closer to critical reckoning points on climate change, we will see even more ESG law, regulation and enforcement, more investor demand, more consumer and public scrutiny and more social and environmental innovation. We look forward to taking that journey together with our clients.