What are your backgrounds in terms of advising and acting for clients on ESG-related risks?
Doug Bryden (DB): I have advised clients in relation to a broad spectrum of risks for many years, from environmental to business ethics (including modern slavery and human rights) and on related governance and boardroom responses. The prevailing trend now is to view these operational, reputational and legal issues through the lens of ‘ESG’. The consolidation of these risks under a single banner is proving extremely useful in both explaining those risks to boards as well as streamlining a stronger, better considered management response. On one hand my job as an ‘ESG lawyer’ is to help clients promote ESG awareness within a business and to ensure compliance with an ever-increasing range of ESG regulatory obligations. However, this needs to be carefully balanced against the threat of novel legal risks that ESG programmes and associated public disclosures create. Much of my practice and Heather’s is focused on achieving outcomes which sensibly protect an organisation from such legal risks, without undermining the real opportunities and progress that better ESG management creates.
