Corporate Social Responsibility

Our Communities

As a large employer working across Scotland, we believe it’s our responsibility to support the communities we serve. We’re keen to use our strengths in a way that benefits the people around us, as well as the wider environment. We work as a firm and as individuals to do what’s right - and make a positive difference.

Initiatives

Thorntons supports a wide range of initiatives that benefit individuals or groups in our local areas. We get involved largely, but not exclusively, in projects aimed at the development of young people through learning, sport and the arts, medical research and selected local community enterprises.  

We were the first Scottish law firm to sign the Armed Forces Covenant, supporting serving military personnel and veterans. And we’re also signatories of the Scottish Business Pledge and a member of the network Solicitors for Older People.

In 2016 a mass public art trail of Oor Wullie sculptures took place around Dundee in aid of The ARCHIE Foundation Tayside to raise funds for a children's operating theatre at Ninewells Hospital. Thorntons is proud to show its support with one of the Oor Wullie sculptures, ‘Oor Lilies’, now in our offices.

Fundraising

With regards to supporting our people in their charitable activities and fundraising initiatives, we encourage collaborative working across departments and offices.

Our relationship with Radio Tay and Forth Radio's listeners’ charity ‘Cash for Kids’ has involved every member of staff as well as a number of local and supportive clients through sponsorship, donations and fundraising events. We’re proud to say over £550,000 has been raised by Thorntons and distributed to the needy across Tayside and Fife over the past 20 years.

Partners, colleagues and clients regularly take part in the annual Monster Bike & Hike challenge raising funds for Maggie’s Centres across Scotland. To date, the Thorntons team has raised over £50,000.

Pro bono work

We give back where we can. As a result we undertake a significant amount of ‘pro bono’ work across Tayside. In the year to December 2019 this equated to over £200,000 of legal support for a range of different initiatives, organisations and individuals delivered in a variety of different ways. Examples of this include our work with Citizens Advice, Women’s Aid and a wide range of charities and Trusts.

Environment

Just as we are doing what’s right for our people, clients and communities, it’s important we do what’s right for the environment. We have committed to minimising the environmental impact of our activities and focus on four main areas: transport, energy, paper and waste.

Our energy reduction work includes energy-saving lighting systems, the use of video conferencing and a power saving server virtualisation project. The combined result of all of this work and a range of other initiatives has delivered a reduction in electricity of over 20%, which equates to a saving of just under 130,000kwh or around 70 tonnes of CO2.

Paper-saving initiatives include recycling on site to save carbon, double-sided printing and email communication with clients where possible. Independent consultancy indicates that we are recycling the equivalent of 230 trees per year.

We are also currently working towards ISO27001 accreditation, which is a world-recognised standard for business operations in terms of security, safety and efficiency.