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In this blog, part of our ‘sustainability allies’ series, we talk to Gowling WLG’s Fiona Nicholls, who leads environmental action in the business, about the Legal Charter 1.5 (Charter) and why it’s important. Climate change action features centrally in the firm’s ESG strategy, along with themes around governance, people, community and environment (PLANET+). Becoming a founder member of the Charter was a natural addition.
Over this series we will look at the impact the firm is having across its ESG priorities through the eyes of key individuals – turning a spotlight on the work they are doing to help others and push forward our sustainability goals.
To find out more about our ESG initiatives, take a look at our Sustainability report 2024.
Your name and role at Gowling WLG:
Fiona Nicholls, Head of Assurance, Environment and ESG Strategy at Gowling WLG.
Tell us about the Charter and how you got involved…
An invitation to get involved in evolving a Charter came to David Fennell, our Chief Executive, from Shane Gleghorn at Taylor Wessing in 2022. The proposal was to develop and champion bold, client-focussed public principles, working alongside other leading law firms to tackle climate change in support of the Paris Agreement.1
As the environment lead within Gowling WLG, I was asked for my thoughts on the idea and felt over the moon at the prospect. It was innovative, challenging and aligned with the firm’s aspirations – a real career high too. We got on board, offering money, time and leadership support. Twelve months or so later Legal Charter 1.5 was launched, and the real work began.
What is PLANET+ and how is it linked to the Charter?
PLANET+ is the name we give to our environment and energy management approach, which helps to signpost and get people talking. It’s also the wrapping for policy and processes that support two of our adopted continual improvement standards ISO14001 and ISO50001. Climate change and nature is our main focus but, internally, we are also looking at waste, circular principles and other resource management. PLANET+ cut across other parts of our ESG strategy too; for example, pro bono, volunteering, risk and assurance and wellbeing – in fact, it touches every department in the business.
The PLANET+ Commitment (environment and energy policy) was launched in 2017, including a zero carbon by 2030 target (for Scope 1 and 2 emissions), which some may have described as a “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal”. At the time, climate scientists were getting louder but businesses were still largely oblivious to the impact, or what to do about it. Even though we didn’t know exactly how to get there yet, we understood enough about climate impacts and how we contributed to them. We also had a good next steps plan. Armed with this, we felt brave enough to put ourselves forward and share our intentions.
With the direction of travel known, we started plugging gaps in data, trained the team and put in place an energy reduction plan. Within three years, building energy use at our London and Birmingham offices was reduced by 20%. Energy specialists Maloney Associates provided technical advice to our Facilities team and we mostly learned on the job, having fun with campaigns along the way. When COVID-19 hit it naturally diverted attention, and time was taken to review progress and update strategy. By the time the Charter opportunity came along, we were ready to act and quickly tucked the Charter under the wing of PLANET+.
What’s different about this Charter?
The Charter has the lawyer-client relationship as a central tenet and that, as well as the co-operation between law firms it establishes, gives it something unique. It goes beyond the direct impacts of offices, supply chains and our people on the planet and also addresses any related impacts of the work we do for our clients. We work with a diverse range of clients and sectors and which are themselves subject to climate risk, regulation and societal change and in need of advice. They are also looking to legal advisors to help them deliver their own sustainability commitments and maintain positive pressure via procurement processes.
As the Charter has evolved, two particularly interesting projects have evolved, linked to advised emissions and matter impact classification.
Advised emissions, or Greenhouse gases (GHGs), arising from legal advice and what to do about them (so called Scope 4) is complex and contentious. It is also fascinating, particularly for the career sustainability folk involved. While lawyers extol the right to counsel any business, big emitter or otherwise, activists rally against professional services that support those considered to be strongly contra to climate demand. There’s no track record or methodologies to follow, so there is an element of breaking the mould on thinking around the source of emissions. On a related theme, another Charter work stream we’re involved with is classifying matters (individual pieces of legal advice) according to climate impact. It has involved preparing a toolkit that any law firm can use, and which is currently undergoing testing and finalisation ahead of a launch during 2025… watch this space!
Pro bono, offsetting and education all feature too. Although not innovative themes in their own right, the aim is to create new and faster collaborative change around them that is.
This is about climate action, but we also have our sights on nature and human rights, which of course are inter-connected. In fact, because of the skills and experience in the room, we can see how some outputs can be adapted to consider wider sustainability themes.
What else have we been doing as part of our commitments under the Charter?
The Charter is about leadership, and we need to demonstrate what that means and be accountable for it. We committed to GHG reduction targets through the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi) back in 2022, when the Board approved the new ESG strategy.
A new bespoke GHG inventory has been developed, including data for the trickier Scope 3 emissions, and third-party specialists Nature Positive (RSK) have assured the numbers. We’re waiting for the SBTi to verify the targets before we publish them in a revised Carbon Reduction Plan, financial accounts and next year’s Sustainability Report.
We are active members of the Charter’s Advisory Board and a senior representative of the firm attended all meetings in 2023-24. I’m also helping to shape a refreshed Charter strategy. An internal Charter 1.5 Steering Group serves as a critical friend and includes our General Counsel and representatives from business services and legal teams – no one person could or should do this alone.
The impact of the Charter gained recognition at last year’s Legal 500 UK ESG Awards 2024 which was fantastic and great recognition for the difference it is making and the input of all those involved.
Footnotes
- The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015 and entering into force 4 November 2016. In recent years world leaders acknowledged the need to limit global warming to 1.5oC by the end of the century and to achieve this will require greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) to peak by 2025 at the latest and decline by 43% by 2030. ↩︎
