Environment law is no longer confined to compliance or transactional issues. Environment now exerts an influence on the economic prospects of most businesses. Combined with several other major issues such as energy security, commodities security, resource management, internalisation of the external costs of environment harm, population growth and increase in longevity, virtually all the major economies of the world are facing tremendous challenges to the business as usual model. These economies are at the bottom of a steep curve of transformational change to low carbon and low resource economies.

We were one of the first major UK law firms to set up a dedicated environment law practice, approximately 20 years ago. Throughout this period we have been consistently rated by our peers and clients as one of the leading practices in the area in the UK and Europe. The highly rated team of specialised lawyers provides advice on a wide range of non contentious advisory and transactional work and on civil, criminal and administrative contentious work, comprising:

• Civil disputes (nuisance, warranties, indemnities, judicial reviews, contractual disputes etc)
• Cleantechnology  
• Directors' and officers' liabilities for environment risks
• Due diligence and contract drafting in all types of transactions
• Energy performance of buildings, carbon reduction commitment and feed in tariffs
• Environment audits, risk assessments and environmental management systems
• Environment-based economic and fiscal instruments
• Environment risks in insolvency situations
• Instructing and working with technical environment specialists
• Insurance of environment risks
• Lender liability and associated risks
• Nature conservation
• Nuclear and nuclear decommissioning
• Permitting of facilities and operations
• Pollution control
• Prosecutions, enforcement and regulatory sanctions
• RoHS, EUP and REACH
• Remediation of soil and water contamination
• Waste management including definition of waste, and producer responsibility such as WEEE,  packaging waste and End of Life Vehicles
• Water law

Our work has included:

• Several high profile test cases on environment laws including for the Atomic Weapons Establishment, Northumbrian Water, Mayer Parry and Hunts Refuse
• For an international automobile components manufacturer, we compiled a study of environment laws in 12 countries
• For well known international corporations we settled trans-European waste management contracts
• Acting for various companies in the nuclear sector on the nuclear and environment regulatory regimes
• Acting in several waste PFI/PPP and other forms of PFI/PPP
• Acting for several waste contract management contractors, construction companies, manufacturers and retailers in relation to alleged breaches of waste and water pollution inlaws, various forms of enforcement and appeals against permit conditions
• For a Japanese Government Department we settled a study on the renewable energy policies, laws and support mechanisms in several European countries
• Acting for several multinational chemicals manufacturer on permitting issues
• Advising on the WEEE and RoHS legislation
• Acting for an international agrochemical manufacturer on the sale of a Part 2A contaminated land site for redevelopment
• For a major multinational chemical manufacturer, we acted on an application for a hazardous substances consent under the Planning Hazardous Substances Act 1990 and for a COMAH consent under the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations
• For a UK utility company advising on its remediation programme for its large contaminated land portfolio
• For a UK pharmaceutical company on the terms of its waste management agreements with contractors and on the classification of waste streams
• For many real estate investors on the implications of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and several other environment laws and policies, including in particular the implications in respect of the application of clean technology within real estate development