Webinar report: How to get your contracts delivering net zero

They’re so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget how powerful our contracts are.

Which is why we can sometime miss the opportunities they offer to further our environmental goals.

Of course, regulation and legislation are major drivers of net zero. However, they’re not the only ones. Contracts, as we know, are bespoke, nimble and negotiable documents with familiar and direct enforcement mechanisms.

Which is why we teamed up with The Chancery Lane Project (TCLP) to host How to get your contracts delivering net zero. This webinar followed on from Leadership, Net Zero and Lawyers, held a couple of weeks earlier, and provided the launchpad for TCLP’s Net Zero Toolkit.

Presenting the Net Zero Toolkit was Becky Annison, Director of Engagement at TCLP. Before joining TCLP, Becky spent 12 years as an in-house lawyer at a large multi-national construction company. She went on to become as a senior editor at Practical Law, covering topics as diverse as Brexit, recessions, climate change and pandemics. A city law firm-trained lawyer, Becky is currently a host on the Thomson Reuters legal podcast, The Hearing. 

The Net Zero Toolkit

TCLP’s Net Zero Toolkit is a free resource designed to help in-house lawyers contribute to their organisation’s net zero and climate ambitions. In it is a range of resources such as green contract clauses, practical tools and useful guides.

Becky talked delegates through some of The Net Zero Toolkit’s many assets, looking in detail at the Net Zero Explainer and the Net Zero Dashboard. Other features include a video, a handy drafting checklist and a compilation of around 20 Best-in-Class clauses aligned with the Paris Agreement and over 100 clauses overall representing a wide range of climate ambition.

Becky explained the search criteria behind the TCLP clauses and how to align them with your organisation’s net zero transition strategy and contract lifecycle timelines.

The webinar also included a case study showing how starting early, making green contracts bespoke and aligning to net zero timelines have helped The Environment Agency get its contracts focused on net zero.

To summarise

Contracts offer a great opportunity to help your organisation get from a net zero target to a meaningful and delivered carbon reduction. And TCLP has created an invaluable resource that will empower you to make the very most of this opportunity.

Learn more about The Chancery Lane Project and download the Net Zero Toolkit.