Climate change round table event

Our commercial property associate, Edmund B., had the pleasure of attending the second roundtable event to discuss climate change and the implications for commercial property transactions. The event was chaired by our environmental consultant, Stephen Sykes and was hosted by Caroline Robinson (Search Acumen) and members of the Groundsure team, Sandeep Sangar and Catherine Shiers.

The discussion centered around whether lawyers have a duty to advise clients of climate change risk and the majority view was yes, there is such a duty. So commercial property and real estate finance lawyers will need to start taking practical steps to fulfil that duty and the draft clauses for reports on title that the attendees considered at the event could help. Another step the legal sector could take is to signpost clients to experts who specialise in advising on climate change risk.

Those who attended the event also discussed a commercial environmental report containing ClimateIndex data (an analysis module that helps identify the potential forward risks from climate change) and there was a great feedback session on how the data could be presented to lawyers and clients.

Climate change continues to move up the agenda and the messaging at global events such as the up-coming COP27 will be that countries should re-prioritise climate change. It would be interesting to know how our real estate and real estate finance contacts are dealing with climate change risks in their approach to transactions. Let us know in the comments.