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- ESG
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Services
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Practice Areas
- Banking and Finance
- Capital Markets
- Corporate M&A
- Dispute Resolution
- Employment and Labour
- EU and Competition Law
- Healthcare, Life Sciences & Pharmaceuticals
- Intellectual Property
- Projects and Energy
- Public Law
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Sectors
- Agribusiness
- Banking and financial institutions
- Distribution and retail
- Energy and natural resources
- Government and public sector
- Healthcare, life sciences and pharmaceuticals
- Infrastructure
- Insurance and pension funds
- Manufacturing
- Mobility, transport and logistics
- Real estate and construction
- Social economy
- Sports
- Tourism and leisure
- Desks
- Buzz Legal
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Practice Areas
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People
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Knowledge
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Newsletter SubscriptionKeep up to date
Subscribe to PLMJ’s newsletters to receive the most up-to-date legal insights and our invitations to exclusive events.
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About Us
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Apply hereWe invest in talent
We are looking for people who aim to go further and face the future with confidence.
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- ESG
Sustainability
Report
Our ambition, our rigour and realism.
We have aligned its format with international best practices to make the exercise measurable, comparable and transparent.
Although we are not yet required to comply with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), we have chosen to begin a phased, voluntary transition. This will test our capacity to collect and analyse information, identify opportunities for improvement, and reinforce our commitment to sustainability.
Based on European ESRS standards — covering governance, the environment, society and ethics — we have structured this report around our five strategic pillars: governance, clients, people, the planet and the community.
In this 2024 sustainability report, we acknowledge the progress we have made, as well as the challenges and urgent developments ahead. On these pages, you will find our ambition, as well as our rigour and realism.
Transparency remains our key commitment to all stakeholders and to the sustainable future we want to build together.
Governance
Our commitment: ethics and transparency
Ethics, integrity and transparency form the foundation of our culture and our approach to everything we do. We are proud to adopt the highest standards of conduct, which are reflected in our daily practices, internal policies, and the trusting relationships we have with our clients, partners, and other stakeholders.
Our actions are guided by internal codes and policies that are aligned with national and European legal requirements. The Code of Conduct and Ethics, as well as the Partner Code of Conduct, set out clear behavioural standards. These codes are complemented by a set of policies and tools that regulate our actions in areas such as anti-corruption, the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, the prevention of corruption risks, and whistleblowing.
In 2024, we ran an ongoing ethics and compliance training programme, including sessions on corruption prevention, whistleblowing, professional ethics, anti-money laundering (KYC), privacy and data protection. Our partners’ and employees’ involvement in these initiatives reinforces our collective commitment to integrity.
PLMJ’s commitment to sustainability also encompasses responsible value chain management. Our procurement policy incorporates ESG criteria into the selection of suppliers to promote fair and balanced commercial relationships. In 2024, we reinforced due diligence practices and planned new risk and sustainability assessment measures for implementation from 2025 onwards.
Clients
Our commitment: to evolve with our clients and foster a positive impact on society and the planet.
At PLMJ, clients benefit from unparalleled technical excellence, professional ethics and strategic value creation. We work closely with companies from a range of sectors to anticipate risks and provide innovative legal solutions that align with constantly evolving regulatory requirements.
In 2024, we provided legal advice on matters that aligned with our own sustainability goals and those of our clients. These included green bond issues and integrating sustainability into corporate strategies. This demonstrates our commitment to supporting the transition to more sustainable and resilient businesses.
We take a multidisciplinary and cross-cutting approach, integrating ESG principles into all areas of practice. This enables us to form teams specialising in responsible business that incorporate dimensions such as sustainable finance, human rights, and business ethics into the legal advice we provide.
In addition to providing direct advice, PLMJ is actively involved in producing and sharing ESG knowledge. We organise debates and initiatives such as the PLMJ Think Tank, a collaborative platform dedicated to legal reflection and innovation in sustainability. This project’s main impact is cultural, contributing to placing sustainability at the centre of legal and business decisions in Portugal.
PLMJ also reinforces its role in ESG advocacy by participating in forums, events, and strategic partnerships. This positively influences the development of legal frameworks that are more sensitive to sustainability.
Looking to the future, our ambition is to continue leading at the intersection of law, sustainability and business strategy. To this end, we will continue to invest in continuous training and structural partnerships, such as our collaboration with Maze Impact, as well as designing strategic responses to new European regulatory challenges.
People
Our people are at the heart of our organisational culture, as they should be.
What does this mean? It means investing continuously in the well-being, inclusion and development of our teams through consistent policies, dedicated programmes and active listening.
In 2024, we introduced structural initiatives such as recruitment and progression processes, well-being programmes, and channels for providing feedback. These initiatives reinforce our commitment to diversity, equality, and physical and mental health, as well as to the creation of an inclusive work environment. Noteworthy initiatives include innovative feedback mechanisms, equitable remuneration policies, physical accessibility, strategic alliances and comprehensive social benefits.
We support talent management and development by offering clear career plans, regular assessments, continuous training and effective integration programmes. We monitor and promote the health and well-being of our employees through preventive measures, adapted spaces and additional benefits, including insurance, free consultations and support for parents.
In 2025, PLMJ intends to further develop mental health initiatives, launch new support resources, and consolidate a culture of human and professional excellence. This will strengthen the alignment between individual and organisational objectives.
Download pdf — PeopleThe Planet
PLMJ is committed to environmental sustainability and is investing continuously in monitoring and reducing energy consumption across all its offices with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality.
Since 2023, we have adopted the Greenole platform in our Porto office, where we are using new metrics to assess and mitigate CO₂ emissions. To encourage greater environmental awareness among employees, we have made plans to create a real-time communication interface that will allow us to monitor energy consumption and the results of sustainability initiatives on a daily basis.
Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, PLMJ intends to consolidate and expand its responsible procurement, consumption monitoring, and resource management initiatives. These measures will help us to improve efficiency and transparency and minimise our environmental impact.
We will continuously share our energy consumption data through interactive dashboards to encourage energy-saving behaviour. We will also periodically evaluate all consumption reduction measures, adjusting them by location and by year to ensure their effectiveness and correct any deviations.
We will improve our purchasing policy by analysing ESG questionnaires sent to suppliers and implementing continuous improvement actions to ensure legal compliance and the adoption of best sustainable practices. Our priorities include cost optimisation, contract renegotiation, the institutionalisation of the ESG questionnaire, and the integration of the purchasing policy into digital systems to ensure constant monitoring and transparent decision-making.
Community
PLMJ’s community work focuses on four main areas:
In 2024, we enhanced the monitoring and reporting of these initiatives, achieving a total of 3,420.5 hours of social impact work. There was a particular focus on pro bono advice and increasing employee participation. We provided pro bono practice support to 40 organisations, with contributions from nearly half of our lawyers, reflecting our commitment to access to justice and social cohesion.
In the field of legal literacy, we organised innovative educational projects in schools, such as Justiça entre Nós (Justice Among Us) and Vamos Fazer a Lei (Let’s Make the Law). We also developed the Citizen Kit and held sessions in secondary schools to democratise legal knowledge and encourage active citizenship.
The prominence of volunteering and philanthropy increased through partnerships such as Just a Change, internal solidarity campaigns, and the continued involvement of the PLMJ Foundation in promoting culture and art in Portugal and internationally.
PLMJ’s participation in collaborative networks such as the GRACE legal cluster and strategic forums reinforces its role as an agent of social and institutional transformation.
By 2025, the firm plans to build on these initiatives by focusing on consolidating impact projects, extending legal literacy to new audiences, and encouraging decentralised employee participation. This will help to establish a culture of social responsibility, in line with the firm’s mission to build a fairer, more inclusive and more conscious society.
As we present our fifth Sustainability Report, we celebrate a journey of continuous evolution, with each achievement reinforcing PLMJ's commitment to ethical, responsible and forward-looking action.
The challenge of adopting the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive has made out process even more robust and rigorous, enabling us to align our practices with the highest international standards.
At PLMJ, ESG is not a parallel dimension, but a core part of our strategy. Sustainability and business go hand in hand – we don't just have an ESG strategy, we have a strategy where ESG is ingrained in our DNA.
The legal sector has an increased responsibility to develop solutions that address the social and environmental challenges of our time. At PLMJ, we feel and embrace this responsibility and, by advising and anticipating trends, we help companies and institutions to incorporate sustainable practices into their decision-making processes and promote real, lasting transformation.
We are proud of our journey so far, but we know we have not reached its end. On the contrary, each achievement increases our desire to go further. We believe that the sustainability of our business depends on continuous investment in ESG. Growing without this commitment is not an option.