Sustainability – NWSidebar

ESG and Law Firms Part 2: Understanding Emissions and Where to Start

In the first part of this series, we explored Environmental Social, and Governance (ESG)—what ESG is and the basics of what lawyers and law firms need to know about ESG. After reading part 1, you may be thinking: How will ESG impact my practice and my firm? We will answer that question here by exploring one of the ways that ESG may impact your law firm operations: client requests for ESG metrics and, specifically, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

by NWSidebar

Environmental, Social, and Governance: What Lawyers and Firms Need to Know About Accountability

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is essentially an investing framework that brings a broad range of what have traditionally been considered nonfinancial factors into financial decision-making and risk analyses. ESG expands corporate accountability beyond shareholders to include external stakeholder expectations on a variety of factors such as climate change, use of consumer data, and racial justice (among many others), which we broadly group into the three buckets of environmental, social, and governance.

by NWSidebar

Wildfires and Us: Part 2

In the first part of this piece on Wildfires and Us, I discussed the emotional and cultural influences that have shaped our collective view on wildfire. In this addendum to that article, I want to share what the best available science and experts have taught me about taking a rational and fact-based approach to our […]

by NWSidebar

Wildfires and Us: Part 1

In his tireless efforts to prevent human caused fire, Smokey Bear tells us that fire destroyed his forest home. In Bambi, careless hunters started a wildfire forcing young Bambi and his friends to flee. Smokey’s message and the fire scenes from Bambi, according to UC Santa Barbara professor Roderick Nash, have done “more to shape […]

by NWSidebar

Setting the Bar Greener

As chair of the Business Law Section’s Communications Committee at the Washington Bar Association, I recently edited the first Business Law newsletter edition focused entirely on issues of sustainability and climate change tailored to the interests of Washington business attorneys.