Climate Contract Playbook Edition 3
231
[Mia’s clause] NEW
The Origin Story
Child’s name
Mia’s clause
Full name
Low Carbon arbitration hearings clause
Practice Area / Sector
Arbitration & Dispute Resolution
Parties in arbitration proceedings tend to create an excessive amount of paper both in preparation of their case and when attending hearings. Bundles of documents containing submissions and evidence can count in thousands of sheets of paper.
Issue
Parties’ air travel to attend hearings generates unnecessary carbon footprint.
Encouraging parties to use a choice of virtual hearings clause along with their choice of law and jurisdiction clauses in contracts and arbitration agreements. All documents in arbitration would be in electronic form whilst all hearings would be conducted remotely. Alternatively, the parties could opt for hybrid virtual and in-person hearings.
Solution
Traditional arbitration proceedings tend to consume substantial amounts of paper – for example a recent survey of US law firms found that each attorney generates up to 100,000 sheets a year 128 . There were 6288 international arbitrations in 2018 129 . Unless recycled, paper requires trees, this creates a considerable environmental impact, which could be avoided. ‘100,000 sheets of paper from new sources requires over 8 trees and almost 2,000kWh of energy’ 130 . Trees are carbon sinks and are important to removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Moreover, parties in international arbitration tend to have sizeable teams of lawyers, experts, witnesses and other professionals whose air travel to attend hearings would add up to considerable carbon emissions. Proceedings may be effectively conducted via virtual hearings and using digital documents as recently evidenced by lockdowns across the world caused by Covid-19. In fact, the use of digital documents as opposed to paper offers numerous advantages such as quick navigation using search tools and bespoke mark-up of documents, whilst reduced travel to attend hearings would save considerable time for parties and their teams to focus on other matters.
Context
128 https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/one_paper_pushing_lawyer_tons_of_greenhouse_gases/ 129 https://globalarbitrationnews.com/international-arbitration-statistics-2018-another-busy-year-for-arbitral-institutions/ 130 https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/good-stats-on-carbon-saving/
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