The age old view that buildings symbolise a city’s achievements remains current, but the urban landscape is being judged by a very different standard now, and it is one that increasingly does not praise scale without a corresponding demonstration of sustainability.

The lifecycle environmental impacts of buildings present a complex array of challenges, and an increasingly vast corpus of policy and law has evolved around these. Clients can rely on Linklaters’ sustainable real estate specialists to help navigate the commercial impacts and risks of this evolving law. Our focus is on helping you find innovative solutions to manage your portfolio.

Our team of specialists is drawn from our real estate and  environment & climate change practices and shares a broad and practical understanding of the green real estate landscape.  We are used to developing policy and precedents alongside clients and tailoring these to our clients’ businesses. 

We see it as a key part of our commitment to our clients to keep them informed of latest developments in the environment and climate change arena including: 

• an award winning series of client seminars on the impact of climate change, with external speakers including Lord Stern, Professor Bob Watson and Lord Browne
• practical workshops on green real estate matters such as the UK CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme*, environmental issues and board responsibilities
• advising various clients (including private equity funds, real estate funds, trustees and financial institutions) on issues around the CRC, including in respect of delineating the corporate group for registration purposes and managing compliance across that group
• the development of a green real estate regulation matrix for the UK-GBC’s 2009 report on a Code for Sustainable Buildings
• collaboration with HSBC and Railpen on the development of an asset owner’s climate risk tool kit made available in December 2009 on an open source basis which achieved 'standout status' in the Financial Times 2010 Innovative Lawyers Awards.

*The UK Government’s CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme is a mandatory emissions trading scheme which aims to improve energy efficiency and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the UK.