Solu­tions

Solu­tions

We have divided all the vari­ous ESG mat­ters in five main areas of focus:

HVG Law offers a broad range of leg­al solu­tions and sup­port to help cli­ents across indus­tries and around the globe with their grow­ing ESG & sus­tain­ab­il­ity needs. Based on our firm’s areas of expert­ise, we offer the fol­low­ing solu­tions related to ESG top­ics.

Environmental Sustainability

Workforce Sustainability & Compliance

Corporate governance & Business Ethics

Supply Chain & Commercial Agreements

Internal ESG Compliance Assessment

ESG in M&A

Envir­on­ment­al Sus­tain­ab­il­ity

Awar­ness of soci­ety and cit­izens, com­pan­ies and polit­ics for cli­mate change and its envir­on­ment­al effects and eco­nom­ic con­sequences has increased. Organ­iz­a­tions and gov­ern­ments are stim­u­lated, if not expec­ted, to invest in sus­tain­able ini­ti­at­ives and solu­tions, such as hydro­gen, e-mobil­ity and renew­able energy gen­er­a­tion.

The reg­u­lat­ory land­scape for envir­on­ment and energy man­age­ment is com­plex and designed and issued at both the European and nation­al level. Com­pan­ies are sub­ject to increas­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity require­ments, includ­ing stricter car­bon emis­sion reg­u­la­tions, non-fin­an­cial report­ing oblig­a­tions as well as product respons­ib­il­ity, includ­ing restric­tions on envir­on­ment­ally harm­ful products.

Our Envir­on­ment­al Sus­tain­ab­il­ity ser­vices fur­ther include advising cli­ents on reg­u­la­tions and actions to address:

  • Devel­op­ment of renew­able energy pro­jects
  • Cross bor­der leg­al due dili­gence and M&A trans­ac­tions in the energy sec­tor
  • Pur­chase of renew­able energy
  • Heat trans­ition
  • Com­pli­ance with reg­u­lat­ory require­ments
  • Cir­cu­lar eco­nomy frame­works
  • Decar­bon­iz­a­tion and emis­sions trad­ing (ETS)
  • Incor­por­a­tion of renew­able energy policies

Work­force Sus­tain­ab­il­ity & Com­pli­ance

With increas­ing reg­u­la­tions on human rights, cor­por­ate and social sus­tain­ab­il­ity policies, work­force-related com­pli­ance is key. This includes sub­jects such as: the right to equal pay and equal treat­ment; trans­par­ency on employ­ment bene­fits, diversity in work force, intro­duc­tion of reg­u­la­tions with focus on redu­cing the car­bon foot­print and gen­er­al meas­ure­ments to pro­tect human rights includ­ing reg­u­la­tions for whis­tleblow­ing. Sev­er­al reg­u­la­tions have recently been announced to ensure fair and sus­tain­able employ­ment, includ­ing ini­ti­at­ives to enhance equal pay. These are issues that many employ­ers are facing, par­tic­u­larly those work­ing in a multi-jur­is­dic­tion­al con­text with leg­al reg­u­la­tions vary­ing from jur­is­dic­tion to jur­is­dic­tion.

HVG Law is help­ing cli­ents main­tain leg­al and reg­u­lat­ory com­pli­ance and go bey­ond that: design ini­ti­at­ives and leg­al solu­tions to address employ­ee safety, well-being, diversity, equity and inclu­sion to improve employ­ee engage­ment, pro­ductiv­ity and reten­tion.

Our Work­force Sus­tain­ab­il­ity & Com­pli­ance ser­vices fur­ther include:

  • Employ­ment law track­ing and com­pli­ance
  • Pay equity
  • Codes of con­duct
  • Whis­tleblower frame­works
  • Child labor and human rights policies
  • Diversity ini­ti­at­ives
  • Return to office

Cor­por­ate gov­ernance & Busi­ness Eth­ics

The design of (cor­por­ate) gov­ernance plays a cru­cial role in shap­ing and imple­ment­ing an effect­ive ESG strategy for com­pan­ies. ‘Gov­ernance’ in the ESG con­text relates to the more tra­di­tion­al cor­por­ate gov­ernance top­ics, such as the rela­tion­ship between man­age­ment board, super­vis­ory board, share­hold­ers and ‘investor rela­tions’.

Sus­tain­ab­il­ity also requires eth­ic­al beha­vi­or. With­in ESG, ‘busi­ness eth­ics’ cov­ers top­ics such as anti-cor­rup­tion and the pre­ven­tion of fraud and money laun­der­ing. Imple­ment­ing appro­pri­ate tools to stim­u­late busi­ness eth­ics (and to elim­in­ate uneth­ic­al beha­vi­or) is part of ESG-proof gov­ernance.

‘Gov­ernance’ also entails set­ting up adequate (risk) man­age­ment sys­tems aimed at com­pli­ance with laws and reg­u­la­tions in the areas of the ‘E’ and the ‘S’.

We can sup­port you with vari­ous tools to design and imple­ment ESG-proof (cor­por­ate) gov­ernance. This entails, for example, the leg­al assess­ment of the align­ment of your cur­rent gov­ernance with applic­able ESG-related reg­u­la­tions, required to avoid fines, liab­il­ity or repu­ta­tion­al dam­ages.

Sup­ply Chain & Com­mer­cial Agree­ments

Organ­iz­a­tions are facing huge chal­lenges keep­ing up-to-date with new reg­u­la­tions in the field of ESG and the addi­tion­al report­ing and oth­er oblig­a­tions they impose. There is also a grow­ing expect­a­tion that com­pan­ies under­stand and address ESG and sus­tain­ab­il­ity issues with­in their value and sup­ply chains. This leads to increas­ing assess­ment and due dili­gence efforts focused at sup­pli­ers, cus­tom­ers and bey­ond. Appro­pri­ate gov­ernance, policies and con­tract man­age­ment mech­an­isms are key in address­ing these ESG sup­ply chain respons­ib­il­it­ies.

We can sup­port you by bring­ing a hol­ist­ic approach to imple­ment­ing an adequate ESG com­pli­ance pro­gram to address reg­u­lat­ory require­ments and identi­fy and appro­pri­ately man­age risks with­in your sup­ply and value chain.

As a solu­tion we offer an ESG com­pli­ance assess­ment of your sup­ply chain con­tracts and com­mer­cial agree­ments. This ESG com­pli­ance assess­ment typ­ic­ally con­sists of pre­par­ing a tailored ques­tion­naire, tak­ing inter­views, ana­lyz­ing con­tracts, report­ing the find­ings and dis­cuss­ing these find­ings (includ­ing iden­ti­fied and poten­tial risks) with you. Sub­sequently, we can assist you with imple­ment­ing appro­pri­ate or neces­sary changes in policies, due dili­gence ques­tion­naires, com­mer­cial con­tracts and oth­er doc­u­ments.

Intern­al ESG Com­pli­ance Assess­ment

When focus­sing on the ESG-status of your own intern­al organ­iz­a­tion, we can assist by per­form­ing an intern­al ESG Com­pli­ance Assess­ment to map one or more des­ig­nated ESG-aspects.

Our Intern­al ESG Com­pli­ance Assess­ment leg­al ser­vices include:

  • Veri­fy intern­al ESG-com­pli­ance and wheth­er it meets exist­ing ESG-legis­la­tion
  • Identi­fy com­pli­ance gaps and asso­ci­ate risks and expos­ures
  • Pro­pose con­crete recom­mend­a­tions to mit­ig­ate iden­ti­fied risks and expos­ures

ESG in M&A

Provid­ing ESG leg­al due dili­gence sup­port to identi­fy one or more des­ig­nated ESG-aspects for the rel­ev­ant tar­get com­pan­ies in M&A-transactions.

Our ESG ser­vices in M&A include:

  • Leg­al and com­pli­ance due dili­gence
  • Vendor dili­gence
  • Trans­ac­tion dili­gence
  • Pro­pose con­crete recom­mend­a­tions to mit­ig­ate iden­ti­fied risks and expos­ure in trans­ac­tion doc­u­ment­a­tion
  • Pre­pare and nego­ti­ate ESG gov­ernance and KPI’s in trans­ac­tion doc­u­ments
Back

Are you curious how our professionals can help in the development of your business?

Con­tact us

Ben jij op zoek naar een nieuwe uitdaging?

Neem contact met ons op