Committing to net zero isn’t an overnight decision, or an overnight achievement. The journey is full of challenges, from securing buy-in from senior decision makers, to measuring emissions across an entire value chain.
According to the UK Net Zero Business Census 2024, high costs are a significant barrier to achieving net zero for almost 60% of large organisations. However, we recently hosted a legal roundtable and found that, for many law firms, budget isn’t necessarily what’s holding them back.
To help you prepare for your own net zero journey, here are five of the barriers that law firms are facing on theirs – and how they’re overcoming them.
1. Getting sign-off from senior decision makers
For many law firms, getting board sign-off on net zero targets and reduction plans is a major hurdle.. Many board members are reluctant to agree on such long-term goals, because they can’t predict what might happen to the firm between now and 2050 (the UK’s official deadline for achieving net zero).
What’s more, they’re reluctant to share these targets publicly, when they don’t fully understand the methodologies being used to measure their carbon emissions and make reductions.
How law firms are overcoming this challenge:
For many of the law firms we spoke to, pressure from clients was what ultimately got the board to sign off on net zero targets.
Are your clients asking about your emissions, or your plans to reduce them? Has your firm’s lack of sustainability action made it ineligible for tender applications? If you can demonstrate that your clients expect measurable progress towards net zero, you may be in a stronger position to engage the board, and encourage them to move forward with confidence.
2. Getting buy-in from other teams and departments
It isn’t just the board that can put up barriers to sustainability. Other departments can influence the success of your net zero strategy, and therefore still need to be bought in. Finance, for instance, will hold the key to your Scope 3 emissions data (particularly if you are using a spend-based measurement approach). On the other hand, HR will play a major role in updating employee policies and processes to align with your sustainability ambitions.
However, just as each department will have its own responsibilities on your net zero journey, they will also have their own concerns and hesitancies.
How law firms are overcoming this challenge:
When we asked law firms how they were engaging each of their firm’s teams, one described it as “a game of figuring out which buttons to press in order to make progress.”
By identifying the business case for sustainability per team, and tailoring your messaging for each one, you may be able to encourage company-wide, positive action. Remember that some teams may need more education around net zero and what will be expected of them to achieve it, so consider opportunities to provide upskilling where relevant.
You might like: The Business Case for Sustainability Reporting
3. Recording Scope 3 across the value chain
With up to 90% of an organisation’s carbon emissions sitting under Scope 3, on average, understanding a law firm’s indirect emissions is essential to setting impactful reduction targets.
This relies on engaging each supplier and obtaining their emissions data – a process that can be time and resource-intensive. This can be especially complicated for law firms that procure many “invisible” products and services, like professional indemnity insurance and outsourced legal counsel.
How law firms are overcoming this challenge:
Law firms are overcoming barriers to measuring their Scope 3 emissions in multiple ways. For instance, some are embedding sustainability into their contracts with new suppliers. This sets a clear expectation that they will need to record and share their emissions data from the very beginning.
Others are using the Scope 3 measurement process to formalise the firm’s procurement policies. Following their lead could help you avoid duplicating suppliers, so that you only need to gather data from absolutely essential companies.
4. Aligning with the firm’s growth goals
Many law firms describe the “tension” between growing in line with their commercial goals, and making reductions to meet their net zero targets. One particularly contentious topic at the centre of this conversation is international business travel. For law firms, there is now a balancing act to strike between flying to meet international clients, while reducing their travel-related emissions.
Pushing the sustainability agenda too hard could cause senior decision makers to withdraw their support. On the other hand, failing to meet net zero targets can also hinder firms’ growth goals – such as by losing out on tender applications to more sustainably driven competitors.
How law firms are overcoming this challenge:
Some law firms have seen success by identifying the areas of the firm they can’t change, and instead focusing on those they can. For instance, one firm said that when its lawyers need to fly internationally, they choose economy for journeys less than eight hours long (rather than business or first class, which have higher emissions).
Look for opportunities like this across your firm, so that you can start making progress without losing the board’s support. For instance, if you need to travel, could you take the train instead of flying? Or, if you have multiple clients based in one area, could you bundle meetings to maximise the benefit of one trip?
5. Managing facilities-related emissions
Another common barrier to sustainability action and progress for the legal sector is facilities management. More specifically, a lack of control over facilities management.
For the law firms that lease office space, sometimes alongside other tenants, finding ways to reduce their facilities-related emissions can be a real challenge. They don’t always have a say over changes to infrastructure, energy procurement, and so on, which can leave them feeling powerless.
How law firms are overcoming this challenge:
Some roundtable attendees said that they saw significant reductions in carbon emissions by buying their own office space, instead of renting. However, this option isn’t available to every firm.
For those with leased offices, the opportunity to enact major change tends to come at the end of the contract. At this stage, you can begin to look for offices with sustainability initiatives that align with your own.
You can also work alongside fellow tenants to put pressure on your landlord, who have their own net zero targets to meet. Remember that you are the clients in this situation, and through collective action, you may be able to influence real change.
You might find valuable: Simple ways businesses can reduce their energy costs
Achieve tangible outcomes for your firm, society and nature
We understand that bringing an entire company on a sustainability journey can be challenging. This is particularly true when the responsibility falls upon just a handful of people, which is often the case for law firms.
That’s why we’re committed to supporting the legal sector on its journey to net zero, with everything from data gathering platforms to workshops that engage senior decision-making teams.
