Environmental Sustainability

In January 2022, Bird & Bird made a global commitment to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), to set near-term and long-term company-wide emission reductions targets in line with climate science. We have committed to cutting emissions in line with 1.5°C. 

Since then, we calculated our global baseline for greenhouse gas emissions in line with the GHG Protocol Standard and adopted the following reduction target commitments, which we have recently submitted for validation by the SBTi and are awaiting validation: 

Near-term targets

• Bird & Bird commits to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 55% by FY2032 from a FY2023 base year. 
  Bird & Bird also commits to reduce absolute scope 3 GHG emissions by 50.4% within the same timeframe. 

Long-term targets

• Bird & Bird commits to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 90% by FY2040 from a FY2023 base year. 
• Bird & Bird also commits to reduce absolute scope 3 GHG emissions by 90% within the same timeframe.

Net zero target

• Bird & Bird commits to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions across the value chain by FY2040

We are currently developing our net zero roadmap in line with these goals. 

We’re committed to making operational improvements on an ongoing basis to achieve net zero and to reduce our environmental impacts. 

We’ve outlined our firmwide goals in our Global Sustainability Policy, which includes commitments on procuring more green energy, reducing our waste generation, and reducing unnecessary travel, amongst others. 

We know that good ideas come from engaged people, so we invite everyone at the firm to share ideas, know-how and experience in pursuit of our goals and have employee-run Environment Committees across our global network working to engage colleagues with sustainability issues. Working together as one firm, it’s all the little actions that add up to a big change.

We’re proud to engage actively to drive change in the legal industry through memberships of initiatives and networks. 

We are a member of the Legal Sustainability Alliance, a network of firms working together to transition the legal sector to net zero and are championing sustainability across business functions. We are members of The Chancery Lane Project, a collaborative initiative to develop and embed net zero-aligned contractual clauses into commercial agreements. We are also signatories to the Sustainable Recruitment Alliance, a commitment our HR team have untaken to ensure a sustainable approach to early talent recruitment.