Why sustainability matters for modern law firms
Without a physical product, manufacturing overheads, or operation of large fleets sustainability can feel less relevant for law firms. When priorities such as cybersecurity, cost management, compliance, recruitment and digital transformation are competing for attention, environmental management can easily slip down the list.
Yet, increasing client expectations, supply chain requirements, and regulatory pressures mean sustainability is increasingly involving more than just reducing your business’s environmental impact. For many firms, it’s becoming an important consideration for risk management, reputation, client relationships, and long-term business resilience.
We know preparing for your organisation’s sustainability journey can be overwhelming. From securing buy-in from decision makers, to calculating your entire firm’s carbon emissions, it can be a lengthy journey. Here are five of the most common sustainability challenges facing law firms and how to overcome them.
5 barriers (and solutions) for law firms getting started in sustainability
Finding time
While some law firms have a dedicated sustainability lead or team, responsibility often sits alongside the day-to-day roles of several colleagues, particularly in the early stages. The challenge is not necessarily a lack of interest, but a lack of time and capacity.
How to overcome this barrier:
At Investors in the Environment (iiE), we encourage organisations to spread the responsibility across the team by creating a ‘Green Team’. Working with the Green Champion, members of the team can help to relieve pressure from their colleagues whilst also feeling a sense of achievement and (part of something good).
Ann Barrasso, Operations Director at Roythornes Solicitors oversees operations across all six sites while also chairing the Green Team. Roythornes joined iiE more than a decade ago, anticipating growing client demand. Since then, the firm has earned numerous awards and accolades and expanded into new areas of work, including nationally significant renewable energy projects, large-scale landscape restoration and biodiversity net gain agreements.
Gaining support from decision makers and peers
Committing to sustainability takes time and effort and sharing that commitment with clients can add another challenge. Long term goals can be particularly difficult to secure support from decision makers when external pressures, such as economic uncertainty, changing regulation, shifting client priorities or budget constraints, make it hard for firms to predict if these goals are achievable.
Gaining support from colleagues can be equally challenging. Without their backing, firm wide initiatives may struggle to gain momentum or engagement across departments. Limited interest from the wider team can also make the board less willing to commit.
How to overcome this barrier:
Consider the external pressures that may influence the board’s decision and use them to build a stronger case for action. Client expectations can be particularly persuasive, so share examples of clients asking about your firm’s emissions or reduction plans. You could also highlight any tender opportunities the firm has been unable to pursue because it could not demonstrate sufficient environmental action.
Of course, some firms may not have received these questions or have relevant examples to draw on. Another way to build internal and external support is to make sustainability a regular board agenda item, backed by a volunteer Green Team. Friendly competitions and intranet updates can keep sustainability engaging, inclusive and front of mind for the board and wider team.
Knowing where to start
What should be measured? Which actions matter most? How much is enough? What should be a priority? If these questions sound familiar, you’re not alone. Sometimes the volume of information can make the first step feel overwhelming.
How to overcome this barrier:
Start by mapping how your firm uses resources and potential effects on the environment. Review energy and water use, purchasing and suppliers, waste, and how colleagues travel to and from the office.
Use these findings to create an environmental policy that sets out your firm’s key environmental impacts and the actions it will take to reduce them. This baseline data will help you set meaningful goals and track progress.
Aligning sustainability with business priorities
For growing law firms, sustainability can sometimes feel difficult to balance with commercial priorities. Expanding into new offices, investing in technology, recruiting more people, and taking on additional work can all increase resource use.
However, sustainability does not have to sit in competition with growth. The Law Society’s research with mid-sized firms found that environmental initiatives can reduce operating costs, while wider benefits identified by respondents included a stronger client reputation, improved talent retention, and access to larger clients.
How to overcome this barrier:
Rather than treating sustainability as a separate project, firms are looking for areas where environmental and commercial goals naturally overlap. This could mean choosing energy efficient office space, reviewing digital and document-management processes, reducing unnecessary printing, improving the way equipment is used, or asking suppliers to provide lower impact alternatives.
The most effective actions often solve more than one problem. For example, a better digital workflow could reduce paper and energy use while also saving staff time. Reviewing office energy use could identify avoidable costs, while clearer environmental data could strengthen tender responses and give clients greater confidence in the firm’s claims.
Meeting changing client expectations
Questions that may not have been asked a few years ago, such as whether a firm measures its carbon footprint, has an environmental policy, or can demonstrate progress against sustainability goals, are becoming more common in tender processes and client conversations.
For firms that aren’t prepared, these requests can feel challenging and it can be difficult to know where to start or what information clients are looking for.
How to overcome this barrier
The goal is not perfection, but transparency about where your firm is on its sustainability journey. By measuring environmental impact, setting realistic goals and reporting progress honestly, your firm can respond to client questions with confidence.
Some firms are proactively sharing their environmental policies, accreditation achievements and sustainability progress through their websites, annual reports and client communications. Having this information readily available makes it easier to answer client questions and demonstrate a commitment to continual improvement.
The good news is that sustainability doesn’t need to be complicated.
Many of the most effective actions start with simple changes, measuring what matters, engaging your people, and identifying opportunities to improve. Over time, these actions can help reduce environmental impact, strengthen your reputation, improve efficiency and demonstrate your commitment to clients, staff and stakeholders.
Looking to get started? By working as an extension of your team, iiE supports law firms at every stage of their sustainability journey. As a not-for-profit accreditation scheme, we’ve helped hundreds of organisations take practical action, measure their progress and achieve nationally recognised environmental accreditation. Call us or email the team to book in a call to find out how we could help you.