Lawyers are to be hit with a £200 penalty if they fly to meetings as part of efforts by one of the country’s largest legal firms to cut down on its carbon footprint.
Shoosmiths will dock the sum from its communal travel budget if its lawyers choose to hop on a flight, as part of its ambitious plans to reach net zero emissions.
The firm told The Times it wasn’t trying to stop lawyers from flying completely, but is aiming to “ensure our people stop and think about whether they need to”.
Shoosmiths has several offices stretching from Belfast to London, home to more than 1,000 lawyers making sales of more than £180m per year. Clients include the carmarker Mercedes-Benz and the hotel chain Travelodge, according to its website.
In August, the company set out plans to cut its carbon footprint to net zero by 2025.
It said it was “committed to protecting the environment by demonstrating high standards of environmental responsibility in all our operations.”
Many businesses are grappling with how to cut down on their carbon emissions amid growing pressure from investors.
The pandemic also led companies to re-think their normal travel plans as they learned they could do more than expected via video-call.
Sophie Hulgard, senior vice-president for sales at hospitality group Accor, anticipated in August that there would be 20pc fewer business trips in 2022 compared to 2019.
She said: “Twenty percent of business meetings may have gone forever, to be replaced by virtual equivalents or the realisation that they simply weren’t necessary in the first place.”
At Shoosmiths, as well as the levy for flying, senior partners are also offering extra bonuses for staff who help meet the net zero target by significantly cutting their energy use, The Times reported.
While the levy for flying will come out of the communal budget rather than lawyers’ personal salaries, breaches of the policy will be noted, the Times added.
David Jackson, who took over as Shoosmiths’ chief executive in May, said he didn’t measure the company’s success just on the money it made, but also on “making a positive impact for our clients, each other, and the communities in which we operate.”
He added: “We’re also proud to see our Carbon Net Zero statistics move in the right direction and were thrilled that our science-based emissions reduction targets were validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).”
A Shoosmiths spokesman said: “The £200 is a levy that goes into a designated carbon fund that we will use to pursue Shoosmiths’ net zero ambitions – so not to stop flying but to ensure our people stop and think about whether they need to and if they do they make good use of it. Also, our new bonus scheme involves a target to reduce travel — again to help meet the firm’s carbon emissions targets.”
