Collaboration is providing the catalyst for action – not just as individuals and as a business, but with partners in the business community too. That is why we got involved with the May Day Network which was established by His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales back in 2007, and with the Legal Sector Alliance – a movement of law firms working together to tackle the challenges of climate change. Such initiatives bring together major businesses to share best practice on environmental issues to encourage public reporting of carbon impacts so that real progress can be made to measure, manage, reduce and report progress.
Also in 2007, we arranged for former US Vice President Al Gore and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to be the keynote speakers at our “Cooling the Planet” conference attended by businesses and political leaders in Sheffield, UK.
We are also sharing our skills and knowledge by providing thousands of hours of pro bono assistance to environmental non-governmental organizations. For example, under the auspices of New Perimeter, DLA Piper’s not-for-profit affiliate, we have developed a climate change project designed to enable small groups of subsistence farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to generate carbon credits through afforestation and reforestation that can be sold as credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions. The result, expected to be realized over several years, will be to reduce the devastating effects of deforestation, drought, and famine in these areas of extreme poverty by providing long-term revenue for participating small groups of farmers through the sale of greenhouse gas credits.
We were also commissioned by the Prince’s Rainforest Project (PRP) established by The Prince of Wales in October 2007 to highlight the need to reduce tropical deforestation. The PRP asked us to deal with certain legal aspects of its work. This has included preparing a report detailing the legal issues connected with the treatment of indigenous people in the context of national schemes to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation. Read more here >>> [SEE ATTACHED]