NEC Climate Change Contract Clause

With the focus in the construction industry and surrounding supply chain on reducing carbon emissions, driving to net zero carbon, and related building safety improvements, it is good to see that the authors of the NEC Contract have taken an important step towards facilitating sustainability in a contractual sense by developing Option X29 to incorporate obligations to deliver, support and incentivize carbon reduction initiatives with contractual mechanisms. It is an option and not a standard clause but it is the first of major standard publications to incorporate this type of wording and with the JCT expected to issue a freshly updated contract suite over the next 12 months, it will be interesting to see whether they adopt the same approach.