Burges Salmon - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Burges Salmon is Medium Risk.

Burges Salmon is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. Burges Salmon occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Medium Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Lower Risk
Employment Protection	High Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	Medium Risk
Political Actions	No Data

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Burges Salmon integrates ESG into its business practices. From its Responsible Procurement policy: “Suppliers are encouraged to disclose the environmental impact of their activities, providing evidence of the steps they have taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution” (1). However, the company has not canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (2).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Lower

Rationale:

Burges Salmon does not appear to discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or beliefs (1).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Burges Salmon appears to prioritize diversity over merit in its mentorship program. From its Working at Burges Salmon Webpage: “Burges Salmon’s ethnic diversity network, BCultured, ‘collaborated with the D&I Team to launch an ethnic diversity reverse mentoring programme. Each year senior leaders complete the mentoring programme, which is led by BCultured members’”(1) and from its 2023 ESG Report: “The Burges Salmon Diversity mentoring Scheme is for students from minority ethnic backgrounds”(2)(3). The company appears to prioritize diversity over merit in its business structure through the establishment of Gender targets for its leadership composotion. The company is seeking “to increas[e] gender balance in our partnership with our target to reach 30% female partnership by 2026” (4). Burges Salmon does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (5).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Burgess Salmon is a member of the Net Zero Lawyers Alliance, which aims to influence regulatory bodies and legal associations with net-zero emission and subsequent decarbonization goals (1)(2). The company is committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2026 (3). Burges Salmon supports DEI/ESG within its business practices. From its Diversity and Inclusion webpage: “Ethnic diversity is essential to our inclusive culture and we are committed to increasing ethnic diversity across the firm. We continue to deliver training to our people on race, ethnicity, culture and unconscious bias and the role they play in creating an anti-racist firm” (4). The company supports ESG within its business practices. From its 2023 ESG Report: “We are recognized as a leader in ESG performance” (5).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Burges Salmon funded Bristol Pride and Pride Edinburgh (1)(2)(3). Otherwise, there are no publicly known cases of the company using corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (4).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

N/A

Rationale:

Burges Salmon does not operate a PAC or engage in lobbying at this time (1)(2)(3).