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Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance

Environment

Contributing to a more sustainable world

Clifford Chance targets net zero ambitions at the same time as seeking to help our clients with theirs.

The Net Zero Delivery Group (NZDG), which reports to our Responsible Business Board, is responsible for the development and implementation of Clifford Chance's emissions reduction plan, with current focus areas including business emissions, travel emissions, supplier emissions and lawyer engagement. The NZDG is also tasked with assessing climate change-related risks and opportunities and risks to the firm.

Our near-term target, validated by the Science-based Targets initiative, is to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 80% by 2030 from a FY20 base year, and to reduce absolute Scope 3 GHG emissions by 47% within the same time frame. For the financial year ending 30 April 2023, we can report that our aggregated Scope 1, Scope 2 (market based) and Scope 3 emissions are 25% lower in FY23 versus our FY20 baseline. 

To add to and improve risk management practices and opportunities identified related to climate change, during FY24, key areas of focus of the firm’s NZDG, working with Operations, Risk and Compliance and other relevant stakeholders, will be to review:

  • our methodology for assessing climate change-related risks and opportunities and their integration into the firm’s Enterprise Risk Management Framework
  • whether to employ any additional metrics tracking the financial impact of climate change-related risks and opportunities 
  • the resilience of the business model; while our qualitative assessment is that the firm’s business model is resilient to climate change, we will complete a more detailed analysis in FY24.

Progress highlights in FY22/23

Responsible Business reporting

Future Focus 

In FY23, our firm continued to focus on helping our clients navigate a complex legal and regulatory landscape and on advancing our own responsible business strategy. We did this with an eye towards the future, concentrating on areas critical to our sustainability and the challenges and opportunities we know our clients will face in the future.

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25% reduction

in our aggregated Scope 1, 25% Scope 2 (market-based) and Scope 3 emissions in FY23 versus our FY20 baseline in the firm 

Follow our progress

Case studies

Powering the future

New technology and government incentives are boosting clean energy and driving a greater demand for high-end legal capabilities steeped in the sector. These capabilities become increasingly important when production scales in ways never achieved before. A case in point is our advice to the US Department of Energy on a landmark clean hydrogen project in Utah - read more from David Evans and Peter Hughes.

Find out more about Powering the future

Clifford Chance attains Gold Medal status in EcoVadis sustainability assessment

Clifford Chance has been recognised with a gold medal for its sustainability efforts, which highlights progress made over the course of FY 2022/23, and places the firm in the top 5% of companies assessed by EcoVadis and top 2% of those firms assessed within the legal and accounting services sector.

Go to external website: https://www.cliffordchance.com/content/dam/cliffordchance/About_us/responsible-business/2023/2023-responsible-business-report.pdf#page=46

Our insights

The latest points of view from our people on our responsible business activities

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