By bringing the firm’s corporate governance, international trade, products liability, intellectual property, environmental, finance, corporate, and labor practice capabilities and experience together, Alston & Bird is able to customize our corporate social responsibility and sustainability services to match the specific needs of our clients, creating legal strategies and business policies that incorporate respect for human rights and comply with emerging environmental, social, and safety standards. Alston & Bird’s interdisciplinary team helps clients evaluate current policies and standards, manage emerging risks, navigate climate change issues (including federal and state programs), capitalize on new opportunities (including renewable energy and clean technologies), understand and benefit from emissions trading programs, audit current practices, and develop new sustainability initiatives.
The group’s attorneys have extensive capabilities and experience, including environmental auditing; regulatory compliance; SB 657 (California Transparency in Supply Chain Act); UK Modern Slavery Act; conflict minerals reporting; supply chain transparency and designing supply controls of gray market and counterfeiting; brownfields and Superfund laws, including cost recovery; construction issues, such as green building design and LEED certification; real estate and zoning; energy and utilities law, including siting, permitting, contracting, and other incentives; environmental due diligence; water and air quality; waste reduction, minimization, and recycling; shareholder concerns on social and environmental impacts, including disclosure of climate-related risks under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules; research and development on emerging technologies; natural resource damage laws; climate change law and policy; reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; reforestation and carbon crediting projects; tax incentives, including conservation easements; and unique financing opportunities.
Environmental, Social & Governance Advisory Group
Our multidisciplinary Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Advisory Group assists boards of directors and managers of companies in understanding the evolving ESG landscape, including the growing prominence of ESG investing, environmental impacts and stewardship, social risk and compliance, and governance. Our ESG group spans several Alston & Bird offices and practices, including structured finance, alternative investments, securities, corporate governance, environmental, real estate, and corporate trusts.
As investors increasingly incorporate ESG criteria into their investment assessments and valuation decisions, our ESG Advisory Group – part of Alston & Bird’s Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability Team – helps guide companies in implementing strong sustainability programs that serve as key indicators of reliable financial performance. The group also offers counsel to assist with demand from certain institutional investors and regulators for enhanced ESG disclosures, whether in the form of stand-alone corporate social responsibility reports or as part of a company’s regular quarterly and annual financial reports or proxy filings.
We are at the forefront of the evolving COVID-19 health crisis, which could prove to be a major turning point for investors with ESG mandates as they evaluate the track record of their companies ahead of capital allocation decisions. Our team includes former federal and state environmental agency general counsel, providing our clients with unique insights into government regulation and regulatory agencies. The collective skills of our lawyers and policy advisors in the ESG Advisory Group, who have decades of experience advising on issues related to the environment, litigation, green funds, securities, and board governance, give us a strong platform for advising clients on the challenges of and opportunities in corporate-related ESG commitments.
We capitalize on our extensive experience representing public companies in securities disclosure and corporate governance matters when developing and reporting on their social responsibility issues. We represent more than 100 SEC registrants in securities matters generally, providing them with the most current advice on disclosure and corporate governance matters, corporate and securities regulatory issues, and transactional structuring. Our securities lawyers have broad experience representing clients that range from Fortune 50 companies to startups. There are few securities issues that we have not seen, and we are fully equipped to handle the most sophisticated offerings and other securities transactions, as well as the daily securities needs of our public company clients, in effectively managing corporate and investor communications, disclosures, and filings.