At Henkels Law, "sustainability" is important.  With a long history of working with businesses, natural resources, and with diverse and often underrepresented populations, sustainability provides the unifying concept of our work.  Sustainability entails meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs (see "Our Common Future" p. 24), and has been expressed as system conditions that must be met if we want to maintain the essential environmental services that sustain human society and avoid systematically undermining people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs (The Natural Step).  

Here are some examples where Henkels Law has assisted clients and community seeking to incorporate sustainability:

– Advising some of Oregon's inaugural benefit companies in their business aims of having a general public benefit serving environmental and social purposes. drafting their required corporate documents, consulting on the appropriate third party standards, implementing the standard, and preparing the annual benefit company report.

-- Securing B-Corp certification by taking entities through the B-Lab Assessment and certification process.

– Representing a client before two licensing boards to demonstrate how the client exercised sustainability expertise that enhanced a licensed professional's work without assuming or usurping professional responsibilities.

– Identifying financing alternatives for a solar photovoltaic installer's successful bid to enable a community center in Portland, Oregon to meet the Living Building Challenge's net zero energy standard requiring that buildings produce at least as much electric power as they use.

--Advocate for, inform, and help empower small business, persons of color, and organizations focusing on community-based improvements in Oregon and in less-developed countries in the Africa region. 

– Consulting for a commercial agriculture facility improving its energy management by obtaining and utilizing several financial incentives for developing solar photovoltaic and solar thermal systems.

--Instructing lawyers, judges, and law and college students in sustainability and how it intersects with the legal profession.

--Working with other attorneys and law offices to measure and reduce carbon footprint of law practice, and increase office efficiencies.