Social Responsibility
The Firm’s Engagement
We view social and corporate responsibility as an integral part of our business. We firmly believe we have a responsibility to make a positive difference in the Hong Kong community around us and in particular with the disadvantaged who all too often find themselves without a voice or representation. Corporate responsibility is therefore an integral part of our business strategy.
While we recognise and value our relationships with our clients, as a firm based in Hong Kong, we take seriously our corporate responsibility to the Hong Kong community and the wider Asian regions in which we live and work. We care for the Hong Kong community, the environment and our people. We ensure that this corporate responsibility is embedded in the way we do business and forms part of our thinking and philosophy.
It is the firm’s policy to encourage lawyers and staff to participate in all kinds of social and community services. We aim to create, develop and lead highly motivated teams that are both equipped with the most updated legal competencies and skills and that contribute to the Hong Kong community as good corporate citizens.
While we adopt the highest standards of honesty, integrity and professionalism when serving our clients, we apply the same standards to the people around us and the Hong Kong community that we are living in, and we ensure that no matter where we work and travel in the world, the same standards and values apply. To have such standards, and to live up to them, is the ethos of the Charltons culture, and it extends from the most junior person to senior lawyers.
Over the years, Charltons has been actively involved in significant pro bono work, including but not limited to, the formation and management of various charitable organisations. Charltons has been involved in the Hong Kong community and the wider Asian community on numerous occasions. Corporate responsibility is important to Charltons and to the team’s professional identity.
Please click here for further details on our pro bono work and here for a list of our active charities.
Hike for Hong Kong
Charltons participated Hike for Hong Kong, a charitable initiative of the Listing Committee of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (Listing Committee), in conjunction with the Listing Department and in support of HandsOn Hong Kong.
Members of the Listing Committee and their invited guests took to the countryside in October 2014 to take part in the first annual Hike for Hong Kong charity walk, and again in 2015. More than 70 participants headed to Sai Kung Country Park to walk the beautiful Hong Kong trail from Pak Tam Chung to Wong Shek Pier. In just a few hours on the Hike for Hong Kong, the group from the Hong Kong community raised over HK$450,000, merely hiking HK.
Hike For Hong Kong supports HandsOn Hong Kong a local community focused Hong Kong charity. Money raised from the 2014 event will specifically benefit a new HandsOn Hong Kong programme called “Tech for the Elderly” which aims to reduce isolation among the elderly through technology training and by bringing different generations together through volunteerism.
HandsOn Hong Kong invite you to donate smartphones, tablets and digital cameras in working order in order to support the Hong Kong community through Tech for the elderly.
The 2015 Hike for Hong Kong benefited Skills Workshops for People with Disabilities, one of HandsOn Hong Kong’s programs addressing pressing social needs in Hong Kong. Many young people with disabilities struggle to secure employment after leaving school and have limited opportunities to integrate into mainstream society. This program helps to teach them skills that can lead to viable employment opportunities.
Planning for the 2015 Hike for Hong Kong, to benefit the local Hong Kong community, are already underway.
More photos from the event Hike for Hong Kong are available at www.hikeforhongkong.com.