In a recent ground-breaking release, the Law Society, the professional body of Solicitors in England and Wales, issued their first guidance on the Impact of climate change on solicitors.

The guidance is in two parts:

1. The first part sets out how organisations can manage their businesses to assist with the transition to net zero carbon emissions.
2. The second part sets out in broad detail how solicitors should carefully consider their advice and their duties to their clients in relation to climate change, taking into account both physical and legal risks to the subject of their advice.

The Law Society openly recognises that this is a quickly evolving area of law. The way that business is conducted, and clients’ expectations regarding the advice given to them, will change in the years to come.

Detailed and sector-relevant advice will follow in due course, but for now the guidance is a powerful statement of intent in relation to solicitors’ practice.

Tinsdills consider this to be a very important part of the service that we provide for our clients. For that reason, we took the decision some time ago to offer residential property environmental searches, which include climate change information as part of our standard environmental search.

This is perhaps the first and most important step in the evolution of the advice that we give to our clients as well as our duties towards them.

We recognise that there’s a lot more work to do, and work we will. But we take the view that this update is not only important in terms of the advice we provide, but is also in the best interests of the whole community that we seek to serve.

Keep an eye out on our social media accounts & news page for further updates related to Environmental Law soon. There’s plenty more to come – let’s keep this crucial conversation going.

Andrew Burrows has a master’s degree in Environmental Law.