Beck Greener is an equal opportunities employer, dedicated to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in the firm.
Partners James Stones and Catherine Jewell, have published Senior Leaders’ Pledges, each demonstrating their personal commitment to improving equality, diversity and inclusion in our firm and in the IP profession as a whole. Catherine Jewell has been working with diversity think-tank IP Inclusive on improving access to careers in the IP sector.
We have statements on Modern Slavery and are committed to paying all staff the London Living Wage.
Pro bono work at Beck Greener
At Beck Greener, we believe that high quality IP advice should be available to all. We offer a service focused primarily on individuals and small businesses which provides a free initial consultation in which we will advise which forms of IP may be appropriate for a new idea and how to go about securing protection.
As part of our “STEM: Branching Out” project, we provide pro bono support to schools, mentoring students through the process of preparing and filing UK patent applications for their inventions, and analysing the initial search report.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at Beck Greener
Our CSR function, led by partner James Stones, involves people from across the firm and covers three key areas: workplace, community and environment.
The firm believes strongly in the importance of a sensible work/life balance and offers part-time partnership and flexible working hours. We also encourage and facilitate the personal development of our staff, for example, providing a very successful mentoring program for trainees, and supporting non-fee-earning staff in achieving further academic or professional qualifications.
With help from Heart of the City, we introduced and developed a successful community project, “STEM: Branching Out”, which promotes among young people careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) in general and in the IP profession in particular. The success of the “STEM: Branching Out” project was recognised in 2018, when we were awarded The Lord Mayor’s Dragon Award for best new community project, and the STEM Employer (SME) Award in the STEM Inspiration Awards by STEM Learning UK.
In the last year we have focussed on internal events to rebuild cohesion within the company as we settle into a longer-term hybrid working pattern. Among the many events we have run have been our third Great Beck Greener Bake-Off in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support, as well as online scavenger hunts and quizzes, a games lunch and a cheese-tasting event.
Since introducing our ‘Greener Beck Greener’ scheme in 2014, we have reduced our daily consumption of electricity by approximately half and have been awarded the ‘Cutting Carbon’ mark of achievement by Camden Council every year. In other words, we have reduced emissions, year on year, since 2014. We have also been awarded the Camden Climate Change Alliance (CCCA) Team Green Mark of Achievement again for 2022, which is for organisations that have developed and delivered a good staff engagement programme around sustainability issues.