The environmental team at Allen & Overy has significant experience in the developing voluntary carbon market. The firm is also engaged at the forefront of emerging green and renewable technologies at a global scale.

Co-head of the international environmental, climate and regulatory law groups Matthew Townsend and projects partner Tim Scales are providing technical advice to the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) on the partnership with Vitol to invest in a range of high integrity, socially impactful of carbon avoidance and removals projects which will generate carbon credits to be sold on the voluntary carbon market. Townsend also assisted RMI and a group of leading steel industry lenders with the creation of the first climate-aligned finance agreements for the steel sector, the Sustainable STEEL Principles (SSP).  

Global co-head of energy David Lee provided legal counsel to Carlyle Group and GIC on their more than $3bn investment in green ammonia/hydrogen developer Eneus Energy to support the development of a 14GW + pipeline of projects in the UK and US.

Internally, the firm’s global environmental strategy targets climate change, biodiversity degradation, water scarcity, and natural resource depletion, and its SBTi-certified decarbonisation strategy focuses on reducing scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 50% by 2030.

The firm also distributes a monthly sustainable transition seminar series amongst a plethora of ESG and net-zero focused thought leadership.