Impact Done Differently

If you are an event organiser, to add your event to your list, please email us at support@prolawyersesg.com. Currently, we only list UK online and in-person events and selected non-UK events held online.

Global Compact Network UK  is launching a four-part ‘Nature-based Solutions for Business’ webinar series, kindly supported by One Carbon World.  

Organised by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), this course is spread over 5 sessions.  It will approach the traditional "pillars" of transitional justice - prosecutions, truth-telling, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition - in a holistic and context-nuanced manner. The course will investigate the timing, guiding principles and instruments that are relevant for all mentioned transitional justice dimensions and make them a harmonised whole, for a particular context, in a particular time.

Throughout five sessions, participants will expand their understanding of a "transition" and instances, when certain transitional justice steps can and should be implemented while an armed conflict or atrocity situation is still ongoing. The course will discuss survivor involvement in the design and implementation of transitional justice measures, especially reparations. The sessions will analyse how some structural steps such as vetting of the judiciary and investigations of corporate implication in human rights violations are key for nuanced reckoning and redress. Participants will also explore how traditional justice initiatives could make responses to atrocities more sustainable and embraced by affected societies. All sessions will emphasise the indispensability of the underlying gender-competence and the guiding ethos of prevention for all transitional justice measures.

Link. Paid.  Online course.

Organised by Reuters -  Europe’s premier sustainability event uniting business and finance.  Navigate incoming regulations - Inform future reporting, net zero and investment strategies - Interact with industry peers. From the CSRD and the EU Taxonomy to the CSDDD and SFDR, Europe is at the forefront of new regulation and incentives to support the transition to a low carbon economy. It’s imperative that both business and finance come together to understand these new challenges. The event will unite 500+ leaders from across government, corporate and finance to outline HOW they’re meeting the incoming regulations and driving real action on climate.

Link. Paid.  In-person, London

The 2024 HRDD Forum Annual Conference brings together legal experts to discuss the current state and potential future development of corporate human rights and climate change litigation. Two expert panels will discuss the following topics:

• The future of tort litigation against corporations, including the rules of jurisdiction in corporate human rights litigation, the debates surrounding parent company liability, and the problem of transnational regulation of cross-border business activities
• The future of corporate climate change litigation, including cases filed against private actors, particularly against major greenhouse gas emitters and the peculiarities of litigation cases involving corporate players.

 The conference will take place in person at the BIICL office in Russell Square, London. Online participation can be arranged only if necessary.

Link. Free for members of the HRDD Forum & other payment formats. London

Hosted by IUCN, IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, and Conservation-Litigation.org. As COP16 approaches, we are seeing a growing understanding that combating emissions alone is not sufficient to prevent global ecosystem collapse and climate breakdown.
Climate litigation focuses on pushing companies and public institutions to strengthen efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, yet the biodiversity that underpins all healthy ecosystems is often overlooked.
The webinar will explore:
The risks of the climate-biodiversity disconnect in legal responses to environmental harm
The opportunities to unify biodiversity and climate litigation strategies to protect nature  

Link. Free. Online.

Organised by Legal Voices for the Future.

More information coming soon!

Webinar organised by The Institution of Environmental Sciences. In June 2024 the UK Supreme Court made a landmark decision that Surrey County Council's decision to grant planning permission to a developer, who was looking to retain and expand an existing onshore oil well site, was unlawful due to the project's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) not including an assessment of the downstream greenhouse gas emissions that would arise from the project.

This webinar will consider the detail of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Finch v Surrey County Council & Others [2024] UKSC 20, the Office for Environmental Protection’s intervention in the case, and the impact of the case on the assessment of downstream greenhouse gas emissions in EIA.

Link. Online, Free event, Lunch time, London

This annual course hosted by the Nature Conservation working party will be held at the Nottingham Offices of Browne Jacobson solicitors.
The course is designed to introduce the wildlife law framework in England and Wales focusing upon species and Habitats Regulations Assessments (HRAs) legislation and providing participants with the chance to look at relevant case studies. 

The organisers have discounted tickets for NGOs and statutory bodies; when booking please opt for the relevant box on the booking section of the webpage. 

Link. Paid.  In-person, Nottingham

 A webinar presented by the ESG Subcommittee of the IBA Law Firm Management Committee, supported by the IBA European Regional Forum.

This webinar will take stock of today’s increasingly tumultuous global landscape, where a number of factors – wars in Ukraine/Russia and Gaza, the rise of other global powers such as China, the climate crisis, global elections and artificial intelligence – are leading to a dramatic shift in the geopolitical landscape. More than ever law firms have important, strategic decisions to make, in terms of:

• taking a stand/making a statement on an issue;

• actions to take/actions not to take as a firm;

• clients to represent/clients not to represent;

• stakeholder engagement;

• expectations of talent/recruits;

• politics versus business decisions; and

• transparency.

This webinar will offer timely discussion of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) expectations and challenges for lawyers and their law firms/companies given today’s rapidly changing world. More specifically, the webinar will serve as a follow-up – after the US presidential elections on 5 November 2024 – to the first webinar on this topic, which took place on 22 February 2024.

Link. Free.  Online. 3pm - 4.30pm GMT

This annual lecture is hosted by law firm Ashurst and includes the distinguished speaker, Richard Macrory, CBE, Hon KC, presenting his talk 'Confessions of a Tunneller - Lawyers and the environment'.

Richard is a UKELA patron and was also UKELA's very first chair. He is one of the leading environmental lawyers of his generation, and has had a significance influence of the development of British environmental law and policy. Richard promises to provide insights from his experiences, and will pose broader questions about the future of environmental law, including:

• We have now created a vast body of specialized laws, but are they providing the answers?   
• Do we need to think about some fundamental principles of law to develop?
• And since enforcement is Richard's number one issue, he will address unfinished business on sanctions, and future challenges on enforcement.

Link. Paid.  Hybrid Event, London. Registration from 5.30pm, Lecture at 6pm to 7pm, followed by drinks.