PLMJ strengthened its impact investment positioning by receiving Impact Advisory support and participating in maze’s Growth Programmes as holders and advisors
Context
In 2018, PLMJ wanted to understand its role and act accordingly within the emerging impact investment sector, and used maze’s growth programme and impact advisory tools to identify the most actionable and impactful decisions it could make to embrace impact investment as a business strategy.
Timeline
2018-2024
Team & Tools
Antonio Miguel, Rita Brito e Faro, Maria Salgado and Francisco Cardoso da Costa - Impact Advisory
Rita Casimiro, António Miguel, Ângela Silva, Tomás Vila Luz, Luís Fonseca, Rodrigo Pais de Ramos, Alice Segre, Cristina Almeida, Raul Leitão Barbosa and Julian McNamara - Growth Programmes
Geographies covered
Portugal
Enhancing impact strategies in the law sector
Bruno Ferreira, Managing Partner at PLMJ at a Demo Day of maze x in 2018
The challenge
PLMJ collaborated with maze to address key challenges, including:
- Defining their role in the impact investment ecosystem;
- Integrating more closely with impact innovation;
- Establishing a new practice area centered on Responsible Business;
- Implementing robust impact reporting and accountability measures.
The efforts to solve these challenges demonstrate PLMJ's commitment to advancing responsible practices and impact within their industry.
The solution
Maze addressed challenges 1 and 2 through Growth Programmes, including maze x, enabling PLMJ to grasp impact trends and scout impact startups across Europe.
Challenges #3 and #4 were tackled via Impact Advisory, resulting in the development of a Sustainability Strategy anchored in 3 pillars and the publication of its Sustainability Report on an annual basis.
The first strategy covered the cycle 2020-2024 and is being reviewed at the beginning of 2024 to guarantee that PLMJ’s focus on ESG topics is still the ones where it can make the most difference.
- Implementation of pluriannual Sustainability Strategies: 2020-2024 and 2024-2026
- Creation of a Responsible Business multidisciplinary team
- Sustainability reports: 2020, 2021 and 2022 editions
- Engagement of 40 lawyers as mentors of impact startups
- 2 pilots with impact startups implemented internally (MyPolis and MysteryMinds)
- Legal advisory and support to 35 impact startups during their fundraising rounds
maze x
2019 - 2021
- Funder of maze x as an accelerator programme
- Impact startups pilots
- Legal advisory probono programme
2023 - present
- Holder of maze x as a growth programme with an investment vehicle
We embraced this challenge guided by our values: we have the courage to confront complexity, we are relentless in our approach, we empathise with those around us, we see strength in diversity, and we are conscious of our impact. Most importantly, we continue to work fuelled by a deep gratitude for everyone with whom we have the privilege to partner every day. Bruno Ferreira, Managing Partner at PLMJ
Corporate leaders across industries can follow PLMJ's path to embrace impact by exploring investment and business opportunities in our Growth Programmes, or by using our Impact Advisory tool to structure their strategic approach to sustainability, including defining how to inform business decisions through an impact lens and how to communicate its performance to key stakeholders.