Travers Smith’s Heather Gagen, who leads the firm’s ESG and impact group, was recently named as one of Legal 500’s new UK Green Ambassadors. In this Q&A, she discusses the rise of ESG, the realities of balancing work and life with a young family, and offers advice for lawyers looking to build a career in the sustainability sector
What made you decide to engage with climate change, ESG and sustainability within your legal career?
The legal landscape around ESG and sustainability issues is highly innovative and rapidly evolving. These legal issues also uniquely reflect much broader social, commercial, economic and geopolitical dynamics, as well as intergenerational concerns. For these reasons, it’s a fascinating area to work in as a lawyer, because it is never standing still and it is intrinsically linked to some of the most complex issues facing the world today.
What has been your proudest professional moment or biggest challenge in relation to sustainability?
One important aspect of ESG and sustainability is DEI. On a personal level, I am really proud of being a senior woman at my firm, heading our ESG and impact group and also our dispute resolution practice. I am doing this at a time in my life when I have a young family and I am definitely living the reality of trying to balance work and home life. I am not going to pretend that it is always easy, but I also can’t remember a period in my professional or personal life when I have felt as fulfilled.
I am not going to pretend that it is always easy, but I also can’t remember a period in my professional or personal life when I have felt as fulfilled.
I try to be honest about this so that it encourages others to believe that they can pursue their career and personal aspirations in a way that works for them, and so that the profession becomes as diverse and inclusive as it should be.
Since you’ve started practising, what has been the biggest change you’ve seen in your market when it comes to sustainability and ESG?
The pace of regulatory change on sustainability issues and the scope of the regimes being introduced has been a game-changer over the last few years. This is true in in many ways, but perhaps most important is that these regulations now impose mandatory requirements in terms of disclosures and risk identification and mitigation. In the short term at least, this means that fewer businesses can treat ESG and sustainability as a “nice to have”. Instead, it is at a minimum becoming a compliance issue. And for many organisations, it is increasingly a matter of maintaining and growing their position in their market given stakeholder and consumer focus on sustainability issues.
What advice would you give to aspiring young lawyers who want to get involved with sustainability matters?
One of the best things about working on sustainability issues as a lawyer is that it is an incredibly broad area. So much so that choosing where to begin developing your knowledge and expertise might feel a bit overwhelming.
My advice would be to think about other areas of legal practice that really interest you, and then think about the sustainability issues that might have a natural nexus with them. That way, you can use the knowledge you already have to engage with sustainability and ESG in a familiar context.
You can then use this as a platform from which to build out your knowledge on ESG and sustainability more generally – because it is also really important ultimately to understand the ‘big picture’ relationships between policy, regulatory, commercial and risk issues in this area.
Read more about the Green Ambassadors in each region:
Green Ambassadors: United Kingdom
Green Ambassadors: Latin America
Green Ambassadors: Asia Pacific
Green Ambassadors: United States