We are pleased to share Brown Advisory’s first corporate Sustainability Report.
Our firm has had a long-term commitment to sustainability principles, and to the prosperity of our clients, colleagues, communities and society at large. We think we have demonstrated the importance of being a leader on these issues, and in recent years, we have recognized the need to raise the bar further—to expand our thinking and become more disciplined about measuring our progress.
The global COVID-19 pandemic and the most recent examples of racial injustice in the U.S. have shaken the foundations of our communities and society, creating immense economic and public health fallout that we are only beginning to comprehend. Against this backdrop, we are grateful to have this opportunity to share with you how we think about sustainability at Brown Advisory, how we seek to measure our firm’s impact on the world around us, and how we plan to improve in the years ahead.
Our report covers sustainability issues related to our communities and society at large, our colleagues, and our clients.
Community and society
- Philanthropic activity
- Environmental impact, including our carbon footprint and our carbon-neutrality commitment
Colleagues
- Career development support, including commitments to support colleague education
- Support for colleagues and their families, including revamped policies covering all expressions of gender and sexual orientation
- Diversity and inclusion programs and metrics
Clients
- General commitments to ethics and fiduciary duty
- Cybersecurity programs to protect clients and colleagues
- Sustainable investing programs, including an assessment of the ESG exposures, carbon emissions and positive impact of our institutional strategy holdings
We view this report very much as a starting point. While we acknowledged some of the things we are doing well, we also used this opportunity to take a hard and honest look at areas where we need to improve, and laid out some of our plans to make progress. Ultimately, we want this and future iterations of this report to drive conversation with our stakeholders and amongst ourselves, and serve as a mechanism to strengthen the sustainability of our firm.
We hope you find the report helpful and informative, and we welcome your questions and feedback.