Dr Annika Bleier to become New Head of ESG & Sustaina­bility of GvW

GvW Graf von Westphalen acknowledges the importance of ESG (Environmental Social Governance) for commercial law firms and their clients by appointing Dr Annika Bleier, a lawyer from our Hamburg office, Head of ESG & Sustainability to guide our internal sustainability efforts and advise our firm on ESG matters. In her new role, Dr Bleier will continue to work as a lawyer in the fields of Constitutional Law and Public Commercial Law but will from now on dedicate a substantial portion of her time to ESG matters exclusively.

“We want to make ESG a priority for our firm”, say Christof Kleinmann and Dr Robert Theissen, the two Managing Partners of GvW. “Balancing ecological, social and economic aspects is not only highly relevant to our clients but also extremely important to us as a business. That is why we are so pleased to be able to fill this key interface position with a home-grown candidate as excellent as Dr Bleier.”

Dr Bleier’s practice focuses on the one hand on Public Commercial Law and Constitutional Law and, on the other, on human rights – a topic that has been very much on her mind ever since she wrote her doctoral thesis on the European Convention on Human Rights. In addition, Dr Beier played an important role in building and coordinating the CSR and pro bono teams of GvW over the past few years.

“My vision is to create real partnerships for sustainability both within our fast-growing firm and with our clients. We all have an enormous task ahead of us that will be accompanied by major changes, and I am proud of our firm for its contribution and for tackling this task”, is what Dr Bleier says about her new role.

GvW understands sustainability as a holistic concept with an internal and an external dimension. Our aim is to weave environmental, social and corporate governance matters into the fabric of our firm. At the same time, we want to offer our clients the benefit of full-service ESG advice with a focus on the various regulatory requirements affecting them.

Our lawyers have been providing advice on ESG-related issues such as the German Supply Chain Act, whistleblowing and the German energy revolution for a long time. In addition, our firm is involved in a number of initiatives to meet its responsibility towards society (click).