Multi-service law firm Chapman Tripp in New Zealand provides services across several aspects of climate, sustainability, and ESG issues, including climate risks and climate-related regulatory changes. The firm has also been active in landmark sustainable finance transactions.

Apart from its experience advising on international climate change negotiations, the Paris Agreement and overseas emissions trading schemes (ETS), the firm has worked on climate legislation such as the 2020 Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Scheme Reform) Amendment Bill, the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019 and the New Zealand Government’s current proposal to introduce climate-related financial disclosure.

Key contact and a member of the Ministry for the Environment’s Climate Change Technical Advisory Group, Alana Lampitt, is currently advising NZ Steel on all regulatory matters relating to climate change obligations for its operations. Another recent highlight is the firm’s advice to Westpac New Zealand on its sustainability linked loan to one of the country’s largest farming businesses.

The firm is the only New Zealand law firm to have joined the international Net Zero Lawyers Alliance. It meets the requirements of Toitū’s carbonreduce certification, having measured its GHG emissions in accordance with ISO 14064-1:2006 and developed a GHG emissions management plan and reduction targets. Already in 2007, the firm established Project Footprint, a working group driving awareness around the firm’s environmental impacts and implementing steps to minimise them.