About Tal Donahue Tal Donahue is a reputation and communications adviser to professional services, property and B2B brands. He helps complex businesses and expert individuals become thought leaders and works to defend their reputation and brand value in special situations. His clients include UK top 20 accounting and top 100 law firms as well as global technology enterprises. About Infinite Global Infinite Global is an international communications firm specialising in PR, messaging, reputation management and content for B2B businesses and professional services firms. Its clients are ambitious, complex organizations that need to engage with sophisticated audiences. The Infinite Global team provides the experience, skills and insight to drive brands forward and, in special situations, to deploy strategies to defend clients from reputational risk. Contact Tal Donahue Senior Associate Director Infinite Global Consulting Ltd 20 Old Bailey, 5th Floor, London EC4M 7AN, UK Tel: +44 02072 691438 E: tald@infiniteglobal.com www.infiniteglobal.com and are providing, the necessary infrastructure, know-how, capacity and investment which will create a new, clean energy economy. They also ensure that the ‘lights stay on’ during the transition. To cast them on to the scrapheap is unproductive – they must be constructively treated as part of the solution. They are also, clearly, entitled to legal representation – with due legal process a critical component to ensuring that those who fall short of their net zero responsibilities are held accountable. The recent research by LSE into the rising tide of climate litigation and its effect on company share price is noteworthy in that regard. This is an important point. The law itself has a vital role to play in influencing and informing the shifts in the status quo that are required to deliver outcomes which support the transition to net zero, while providing the safeguards that ensure the transition is ‘just’. The Chancery Lane Project, for example, has taken forward the mission of making ‘climate clauses’ for contracts freely accessible – with the aim of making climate considerations ubiquitous in commercial agreements. We should not be lulled into thinking that commercial firms have been dragging their feet. The legal industry has been taking real steps forward, spurred by voluntary organisations and pacts, not least the Legal Sustainability Alliance, Lawyers for Net Zero and, most recently, the Legal Charter for 1.5 Degrees. These all have a role to play in sharing best practice and raising awareness of the role of the law, lawyers and law firms in the net zero mission But firms cannot rest on their laurels. Scrutiny on the industry as a whole is intensifying, expectations are increasing, and climate is now a critical battleground in the war for talent, and for work. Firms must be prepared to reflect and respond on these issues. Their reputations are at stake. that transforming their business to be ‘carbon neutral’ is a strategic priority aligned with values, yet their client work includes serving the interests of, say, the continuation of fossil fuel production. The reality, of course, is more nuanced. But those are the optics that firms are dealing with. And optics are important. Law firms’ reputations are essential to their commercial success – from impacting their ability to attract talent, to sustaining fruitful relationships with referrers. Communications are, of course, essentially the art of building and maintaining reputation and getting it right on climate change is vital. The Law Driving Positive Change But the challenge is that simply ‘refusing to work’ for, say, fossil fuel companies or in other ‘hard to abate’ industries risks over-simplifying the climate problem – to take nothing away from the laudable philosophical position of the Lawyers are Responsible movement. The reality is, as the UK government has pointed out, legacy industry operators, such as oil and gas businesses, have a vital role to play in the energy transition – even if some find that an unpalatable truth. Those with foresight will provide, SPECIAL FEATURE 59
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