How Legal Giant Dentons is Helping UK Government Decarbonise
The UK Government is committed to reducing the country’s emissions to net zero by 2050.
This includes its own emissions across all scopes.
Law firm Dentons was instructed to help the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in a four-month project - and Dentons delivered, reducing the carbon footprint of its services in this project by 44%.
Caroline Connolly, Environmental Sustainability Manager at Dentons, says: "Legal services represent a small but significant source of Scope 3 emissions for organisations that engage lawyers, and Dentons is eager to support its clients by reducing emissions associated with working together.
"Many of our clients are committed to minimising their emissions and negative impact on the planet and we have identified how we can help them achieve this, simply by adjusting how we provide services to them.
Dentons
Dentons is the world’s largest global law firm by employees, with more than 5,600 lawyers.
The firm was founded in 2013 by the merger of three law firms, later including Chinese firm Dacheng and becoming the top law firm by headcount.
Dentons describes itself as ‘The Polycentric Law Firm’.
Elliott Portnoy, Global CEO at Dentons, says: “Dentons is proudly polycentric with no single global headquarters and no dominant culture.
“When we appreciate local customs and traditions, we strengthen Dentons’ understanding of our client needs and we are able to deliver better solutions to our clients who operate in an interconnected and culturally diverse business landscape.”
It aims to reach net zero in line with its adherence to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Caroline says: “We believe we are among the first major law firms to offer a genuinely low carbon service and are proud to demonstrate that law firms can make a meaningful positive impact on the climate, in balance with their commercial aims.”
The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Defra is a ministerial department of the UK Government, responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities across the UK.
It was formed in 2001 and has a 2024 budget of £2.2bn (US$2.8bn).
In July 2024, Steve Reed MP was appointed as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The department is working towards the government’s goal of net zero by 2050 and has already reduced its own greenhouse gas emissions by 27%.
Identifying emissions in legal services
To set sustainability targets, businesses must first quantify their environmental impact and identify where emissions come from.
This is not only important for Dentons’ own sustainability goals, but also for its clients who need to know the emissions of their suppliers.
In collaboration with Defra Legal Advisors and Dentons’ internal sustainability specialists, the firm identified the factors needed to establish an emissions baseline, changes needed to decarbonise its service and what data to collect in calculating reductions.
- Travel
- Printing
- Postage
- Meetings
- Mode of data exchange
How Dentons reduced its emissions
Dentons used an innovative Legal Front Door platform to simplify instruction submissions and approvals.
This platform was tailored to Defra and the four -month project it was working on with Dentons.
Dentons’ automated workflow allowed the firm to triage and assign incoming instructions in less than an hour.
It also contained dashboards for Defra to be able to monitor status and updates, offering 78% less carbon intensity than emails alongside better visibility and control over its legal spend.
Caroline says: “While we are delighted with what we accomplished for Defra Legal Advisors, ensuring this initiative has lasting impact will require us to further integrate and strengthen our proven net zero commitment into our everyday working practices and evolve our operations in partnership with our clients - something we are consciously working to do.”
******
Make sure you check out the latest edition of Sustainability Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Sustainability LIVE 2024
******
Sustainability Magazine is a BizClik brand
******