Climate Change Strategy

Our emissions

We have measured our emissions footprint for FY 2019/20 in line with the Science Based Target initiative. This includes our direct emissions (scope 1), the emissions from our electricity (scope 2), and the emissions from our value chain (scope 3). 

Our total greenhouse gas emissions for 2019-20 were:

• 5,139 tonnes CO2e (tCO2e)
• 5.5 tCO2e per person
• 27.3 tCo2e per £million revenue

Our Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting (SECR) is reported for FY 2019/20, in accordance with The Companies (Directors’ Report) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Energy and Carbon Report) Regulations 2018.

Reducing our emissions

We are one of only five law firms to have signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative.

We are in the process of having our targets validated. 

We will report company-wide emissions and track target progress annually.

What this means:

To meet our science-based target, we need to reduce our emissions by 4.2% every year for the next 10 years. We are carefully reviewing our business to determine how we can achieve these efficiencies from a pre-Covid base.

We are integrating our reduction targets into our business plans including in relation to:

• energy and office space;
• IT;
• air travel; and
• commuting.

Capturing the balance

We are committed to having a material positive impact, this year and every year, working towards net zero.  

To achieve this, while reducing our emissions in line with the SBTi, we are working with partners to ensure that carbon equivalent to our unavoided emissions is captured over defined periods.

In our view, there are significant challenges with many of the existing voluntary offsetting schemes. We propose to avoid these and, instead pay for carbon equivalent to our emissions being sequestered through known innovative UK nature-based projects, which measure the carbon captured and also deliver positive social and environmental impact.

What this means:

• We pay every year to secure the capture of carbon equivalent to our unavoided emmissions (which will be decreasing by 4.2% annually) through afforestation, peatland regeneration and regenerative agriculture over identified landscapes in the UK. 
• These projects will have other environmental (increased biodiversity) and social (e.g. amenity and flooding abatement) impacts, which will be measured and reported to us.