By GAIL UK Regional Board

On the 12th March 2025, Legal Charter 1.5 and Save the Children Global Ventures (SCGV) held a joint event to discuss a flagship project in Nandi County, Kenya. The project, sees an initial US$5m,10 year investment from Legal Charter 1.5 to support communities impacted by climate change.

Titled “A New Climate Solution for Law Firms: Lessons from the SCGV/Legal Charter 1.5 Collaboration”, the event spotlighted a bold and innovative project bringing together eight leading UK law firms and Save the Children Global Ventures (SCGV) in a long-term commitment to child-focused climate adaptation in Kenya.

This collaboration, facilitated through Legal Charter 1.5, represents a first for the legal profession—pooling offset budgets and legal expertise to support a 30-year climate resilience programme in Nandi County. The project exemplifies how the private sector, particularly law firms, can invest in scalable, replicable climate finance models that deliver high-integrity carbon credits while advancing critical social outcomes.

Legal Charter 1.5: Mobilising the Legal Sector for Climate Transition

Legal Charter 1.5 was created in 2023 as a cross-sector initiative aimed at enabling the legal profession to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, with a specific focus on the 1.5°C target. It brings together law firms, legal departments, bar associations and individual lawyers around a shared agenda: using the tools of the legal profession to facilitate climate transition.

At its core, Legal Charter 1.5 promotes three pillars of engagement:

  • Integrating climate risk into legal advice and services.
  • Supporting just transitions for workers and communities impacted by climate change.
  • Using legal expertise to unlock innovative financing for climate and community resilience.

The Charter is more than a statement of intent—it is a platform for shared action, knowledge exchange, and measurable progress. The collaboration with SCGV is one of its most ambitious undertakings to date, demonstrating how legal institutions can deliver not only compliance but also catalytic impact.

The SCGV Partnership: A New Model for Child-Focused Climate Action

The partnership with Save the Children Global Ventures—an investment and innovation arm of Save the Children—marks a significant evolution in the role of legal actors in climate finance. SCGV exists to connect private-sector investment with child-centred development outcomes, particularly in regions facing the twin challenges of poverty and climate change.

The Legal Charter 1.5–SCGV collaboration has committed an initial US$5 million (approximately £4 million) over ten years, contributed by eight leading UK law firms: Freshfields, Clyde & Co, Slaughter and May, DLA Piper, Taylor Wessing, Charles Russell Speechlys, Simmons & Simmons, and one firm that has chosen to remain anonymous.

This funding supports a carbon-financed programme in the tea-growing region of Nandi County, western Kenya. The area suffers from high levels of child poverty, malnutrition and deforestation, all exacerbated by climate change. The project is structured as a nature-based solution using agroforestry and reforestation to rebuild degraded landscapes, enhance food security, and improve child wellbeing.

The long-term vision is to establish a scalable model that can be replicated by law firms and other professional service providers globally—connecting offset budgets to high-impact climate-social outcomes.

Programme Design and Delivery: Local Collaboration and Nature-Based Solutions

The Nandi County project is designed in collaboration with local communities and the Nandi County government, reflecting a shift away from short-term charity models towards long-term, community-owned development.

Key programme components include:

  • Agroforestry: Supporting farmers to plant indigenous trees alongside crops, improving soil health, diversifying yields and increasing climate resilience.
  • Reforestation: Restoring degraded riparian lands and wetlands to protect watersheds and support biodiversity.
  • Market Access: Helping smallholders access higher-value national and international markets for sustainable produce.
  • Child-Centred Impact: Tackling child malnutrition, food insecurity and vulnerability through improved household resilience and livelihoods.
  • Carbon Sequestration: Trees planted through the project are expected to capture over 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, generating high-integrity carbon credits.

These credits are verified against internationally recognised standards, including ICVCM’s Core Carbon Principles, ensuring transparency and integrity. Revenues generated will support programme sustainability over a 30+ year time frame.

Importantly, the project is underpinned by Save the Children’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) framework to measure and report on social outcomes—particularly those benefiting children.

The Legal Role: Lawyers as Architects of Climate-Social Finance

A distinctive feature of this initiative is the deep involvement of legal professionals not just as funders, but as co-creators. Lawyers from the participating firms have been instrumental in designing the project’s legal and governance structures. Their contributions include:

  • Structuring the carbon finance mechanisms, including credit permanence and verification processes.
  • Drafting the collaboration agreement between Legal Charter 1.5 and SCGV.
  • Navigating regulatory frameworks, land rights, and benefit-sharing protocols to ensure community protection.
  • Supporting due diligence, legal risk allocation, and contract design to attract further private capital.

Jake Reynolds, Head of Client Sustainability and Environment at Freshfields and Chair of the Legal Charter 1.5 working group, described the initiative as the next evolution of the firm’s ten-year REAP (Rural Electrification & Agriculture Programme) funding. “We have to raise our sights to higher value, longer-term, collaborative initiatives to get anywhere near the scale required to protect communities from climate change,” he stated. Amanda Carpenter, Co-founder of Legal Charter 1.5, emphasised the wider implications: “Almost all economic activity has an impact on climate and lawyers are involved in much of it. Law firms can play a vital role in supporting climate transition both through their advice and by modelling new ways of working.” This demonstrates a shift in the role of lawyers: not only risk managers, but also enablers of social and climate innovation.

Motivations: Why Law Firms Joined the Collaboration

The decision by law firms to join the SCGV initiative was driven by a convergence of strategic, ethical and operational factors:

  • Amplified Impact: By pooling offset budgets, firms were able to fund a more ambitious, long-term project than any one of them could have supported individually.
  • Strategic Alignment: The collaboration aligns with the firms’ net zero and ESG commitments, while reinforcing their role in enabling the global transition to a low-carbon economy.
  • Client Relevance: The initiative offers a replicable model that can be extended to clients seeking credible, high-quality carbon offsetting opportunities.
  • Pro Bono Synergy: Many of the legal tasks involved—such as drafting contracts or advising on regulatory frameworks—fit naturally within the firms’ pro bono mandates.
  • Reputational Value: Participating in a visible, high-impact climate initiative underscores firms’ values and enhances credibility with clients, regulators, and employees alike.

Crucially, the collaboration demonstrates that law firms are not just passive contributors to sustainability goals, but active agents of innovation.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

The journey from idea to implementation was not without obstacles. Some of the most notable challenges included:

  • Legal Complexity: Designing carbon-finance projects across international jurisdictions involves navigating uncertain regulatory landscapes, unclear land tenure systems, and evolving carbon markets.
  • Trust and Coordination: Building trust among eight competing firms required clear governance protocols and a shared commitment to common values.
  • Long-Term Investment Mindset: Securing ten-year financial commitments from firms required strategic foresight and leadership buy-in.

Despite these challenges, the collaboration has already begun to yield valuable lessons:

  1. Legal frameworks are critical: Climate impact is not achievable at scale without legal structures that ensure compliance, accountability, and community protection.
  2. Partnerships matter: Having a convening platform like Legal Charter 1.5 was essential for building cohesion and trust among participants.
  3. Patient capital is key: Climate and development outcomes unfold over decades, not months. Legal actors must think in generational terms, not quarterly returns.