In a pioneering effort to reduce carbon emissions, a distinguished City law firm is spearheading a low-carbon service by encouraging its lawyers to e-sign agreements that forgo printing documents. This initiative, developed for the Government Legal Department (GLD), marks a significant step towards sustainability in legal services, spearheaded by Caroline Connolly, the environmental sustainability manager at the firm.
During an extensive four-month project, the firm collaborated with Defra Legal Advisers, integrating efforts across five teams, while employing dashboards to streamline communication and reduce email usage. The project involved approximately 40 lawyers who embraced a hybrid working model, spending 40% of their time remotely to minimise commuting emissions and hosting only one in-person meeting at the project’s initiation.
The absence of physical document handling, following the signed e-agreement, eliminated the need for postal and courier services, thus reducing the carbon footprint significantly. Connolly emphasised that the service could act as a blueprint for other clients, enhancing the firm’s ability to decarbonise its offerings comprehensively. She highlighted that this initiative aligns with the firm’s ambition to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040, a commitment made evident through their partnership with Defra.
Through this collaboration, the firm and Defra established an emissions baseline to identify necessary decarbonisation changes and measure reductions. Suresh Arasaratnam, a senior legal project manager, detailed the instrumental role played by the firm’s Legal Front Door tool in this process, which minimised email reliance by directing clients to the necessary specialist and consolidating all communications in a single portal.
The use of the Legal Front Door tool, adapted from Thomson Reuters HighQ software, resulted in a reported 78% decrease in carbon intensity compared to traditional email communication. Additionally, the initiative reduced the service’s overall carbon footprint by approximately 44%, equating to a reduction of around 120 kg CO2e or the equivalent of 14,597 smartphone charges.
Connolly noted that this innovation places the firm among the first major law practices to offer a genuinely low-carbon service, underscoring the potential for law firms to significantly contribute to climate change mitigation while maintaining commercial viability. She clarified that legal services contribute to scope 3 carbon emissions, which encompass indirect emissions from activities such as business travel and waste management.
Connolly concluded that for the initiative to yield lasting impacts, it is imperative for the firm to seamlessly integrate and fortify net zero commitments within daily operations, evolving in concert with client partnerships.
