Carpenter: No rowing back on sustainability commitments
The Bar Council has transferred delivery of the Bar Sustainability Network (BSN) from itself to Achill Legal, a consultancy that specialises in running carbon-cutting initiatives across the legal profession.
Amanda Carpenter, chief executive of Achill Legal and the new director of BSN, said despite the pressure put on large international law firms by US president Donald Trump, she sensed “no rowing back” on sustainability commitments by UK law firms or chambers.
“The need to address climate change has not gone away. Last year was the hottest year on record. We have to do more to tackle climate change, not less.”
Ms Carpenter said Achill would “enhance and extend” the services offered by BSN, which has over 40 sets of chambers as members, and help it become part of the “wider conversation across the profession”.
The consultancy currently provides secretariat services for Legal Charter 1.5, an initiative launched in June 2023 by a group of large commercial law firms wanting to help restrict global warming by 2030 to no more than the 1.5°C increase reached last year.
Achill also helps run the Legal Sustainability Alliance, a not-for-profit sustainability network for law firms, the Greener Litigation Pledge, signed by 75 law firms and a dozen barristers’ chambers involved in litigation, and the One Million Hours project, which aims to raise a million hours of intellectual capital from the legal services industry to support climate-friendly projects.
BSN was launched by the Bar Council in March 2021 to help chambers transition to “a more sustainable way of working”, saving both carbon emissions and costs.
Members of BSN pay an annual fee of £500 for access to a range of advice and information, online support and resources, including a ‘carbon calculator’ to measure emissions and set reduction targets.
There is a reduced fee of £150 for chambers where the majority of work is publicly funded.
Ms Carpenter said membership fees would remain the same for a better service. “As the network has grown over the last couple of years, so have the demands from chambers and the network needed more support.”
She said working groups could be set up on issues like business travel, which often came up, particularly in the context of measuring the impact effectively.
“Chambers vary greatly in size and resources, and we hope that the larger ones can support the smaller, and those with innovative ideas can share them. We will be encouraging chambers to be ambitious.”
Under the new regime, BSN has an advisory board, made up of the two co-chairs of the Bar Council’s climate crisis working group, a member of the organisation’s senior management, and chambers representatives.
The two law firms that sponsor the BSN, Clyde & Co and DWF, are also represented on the board.
Patrick Linighan, chief sustainability officer at Clyde & Co, said the BSN played a “crucial role” in helping barristers and chambers within the legal supply chain measure and report carbon emissions.
“This is increasingly important as law firms face pressure from their clients, to measure, report and reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, including Scope 3 emissions, which encompass the emissions of the barristers and chambers in the law firm supply chain.”
Kirsty Rogers, chief sustainability officer at DWF, said the law firm’s carbon footprint included emissions attributed to barristers in its supply chain both externally and through services provided by in-house DWF Chambers.
“Working with Achill, Clyde & Co and the Bar Sustainability Network, we will support and empower members to embark on ambitious climate action enabling them to better understand their environmental impacts and calculate the associated carbon emissions”.
Sam Mercer, head of CSR [corporate social responsibility] at the Bar Council, added: “Achill Legal has supported the network since the beginning and so it feels like a natural next step for Achill to take on the delivery of the network to help it grow even further and ensure chambers have access to expert advice and best practice from across the whole legal sector.”
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