Corporate Social Responsibility
Sustainability in practice
Advising companies on ESG and sustainability issues, breaking up structures and reorganizing them responsibly, discussing "sustainability" and implementing one or the other internal project is already part of the agenda at fwp.
With the newly founded fwp Sustainability Committee, we are giving top priority to the goal of working together even more sustainably as a team. Partners, lawyers and our back office and administration staff are part of the sustainability committee and collect ideas, set goals and realize them. Social, environmental: No project is too small or too big. This is part of our self-image as a successful team.
fwp daily proves an inspiring foresight - not only in terms of providing legal advice. We also take our corporate responsibility towards the environment and society very seriously. Our commitment encompasses social and environmental projects which contribute to maintaining future viability.
Our main focus is on the cooperation with the Austrian association in support of the blind and visually impaired (Hilfsgemeinschaft für Blinde und Sehschwache) as well as our annual kunstakt exhibition, where we provide future artists with a professional exhibition framework. But also the support of the project MIËLO, which encourages biodiversity in Austria, has become a matter of the heart at fwp. We have also been supporting the non-profit association Grow Together for several years, which accompanies families with babies and small children in the most difficult life situations.
We are proud of our social commitment and would like to thank the entire fwp.TEAM for their active support in these endeavours, and our partners for their passionate and great commitment to the projects.
A presentation and the event ‘Blind Experience’ featuring the blind professional climber Andy Holzer at Dialog im Dunkeln (Dialogue in the Dark) in September 2016 as well as a presentation (organised together with the Zero Project) given by Justice Richard Bernstein, the first blind judge at the Michigan Supreme Court, inspired fwp to focus even more intensively on the topic of visual impairment. This resulted in the idea to look at the situation in Austria and to invite one of the first two blind judges in Austria, Gerhard Höllerer (judge at the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht)).
The idea was put into practice the following year. A roundtable event to discuss the topic ‘Blind Insights – legal career prospects for blind people’ with high-profile participants, including Vice-Chancellor and Federal Minister of Justice Wolfgang Brandstetter, the President of the Federal Administrative Court Harald Perl, Judge Gerhard Höllerer, the Director of the Zero Project Michael Fembek (Essl Foundation), and fwp was held in September 2017. The objective was to discuss legal career options for blind people, to evaluate the experiences and needs of those affected and to find starting points where the support by fwp makes sense. In another panel discussion in April 2019 about the legal career options and opportunities for blind and visually impaired persons, these insights resulted in highlighting opportunities and finding concrete starting points for fwp to develop a stronger commitment to employing visually impaired persons in the legal professions. The explicit request for fwp internships resulting from the discussion was fulfilled by fwp offering two internships for blind or visually impaired students to pave the way for directly affected persons’ career entry and provide equal opportunity in the field of labour. The recruitment is carried out in cooperation with the fwp Human Resources team and Hilfsgemeinschaft für Blinde und Sehschwache, Austria’s largest self-help organisation for visually impaired people. With the help of their expertise on technical equipment and on low vision rehabilitation, persons with severe sight impairment are able to make full use of their opportunities.
fwp supports bee-friendly and sustainable honey production in Austria’s Waldviertel region and, as partner of MIËLO, helps promoting organically farmed meadows and farmland. In this context, farmers in the surrounding areas who do not use any pesticides and fertilisers receive funding, whereby a significant contribution to biodiversity is made. But that is not all: fwp does not only focus on the environment, but goes one step further and donates a substantial amount of the acquired MIËLO honey to Grow Together. The non-profit organisation supports and helps parents with infants in difficult life situations; our generous donation enables it not only to cover the families’ annual requirement for honey but also to better promote and communicate the sustainable change achieved by Grow Together.
Since March 2020, another recipient has been enjoying a significant amount of the liquid gold: with the donation to St. Stephen's Cathedral, fwp is supporting cathedral priest Toni Faber in a variety of social projects. On the one hand, this gives the parish of St. Stephen's an environmentally friendly gift for persons in need, on the other hand sales proceeds from the sale of the honey will be donated to the parish’s Caritas section.