Ashurst has responded to mounting pressure on companies and governments to improve their green credentials by appointing a global sustainability partner. Hong Kong-based Anna-Marie Slot, who heads up the firm’s high-yield practice, is briefed with helping clients ‘navigate the strategic challenges and opportunities of regional and multi-jurisdictional sustainability issues’. 

Two-person team

She will work with London-based strategic director Dave Rome to help both the firm and its clients improve sustainability.

The initiative will focus on climate-change risk, green finance and wider environmental issues affecting companies, governments, financial institutions, funds and investors. 

Slot, who joined Ashurst from White & Case in 2014 ,said the firm had a track record in green finance and was a world leader in the power and renewables sector.

She added: “Through our support of various sustainability-focused organisations worldwide, such as the Climate Bond Initiative, Ashurst has played a key role in this rapidly evolving area.”

Critical issue

Rome joined Ashurst from Royal Bank of Scotland in 2016, where he was head of loan capital markets.

"As global climate change continues to advance at rapid levels, corporate sustainability has become even more critical,” he said.

Ashurst is among a host of firms moving to marshal their legal expertise in order to advise clients on sustainability. 

In July, The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) reported that climate change law suits had been launched in at least 28 countries across the world.

Last month, Baker McKenzie announced a plan to significantly reduce its global carbon emissions over the next decade.