Understanding Green Leases - A Drafting Toolkit

Introduction

A sea of change is coming for commercial leasing. There’s no silver bullet to counter the effects of the climate crisis, but as part of a multi-faceted approach to an incredibly complex problem, green leases undoubtedly have an important role to play.

There is no institutionally accepted market standard yet, but a nascent green lease tool is emerging from the gloom. While the UK government procrastinates over serious top down legislative and policy solutions to the climate emergency, landlord clients are already building a brave new world from the bottom up.

As lawyers, you are at the vanguard of a rapidly developing profession and green leases are a real opportunity - not least for differentiating your professional offer.

What You Will Learn

This course will cover the following:

• The legal landscape behind green leases
• How to identify the pinch points for your clients
• The motivations for the key players, to make negotiation easier - landlords, tenants and funders
• The tools currently freely available to help with drafting:
• Interactive exploration of the various tools. E.g. MCL, GLL, MIT, TCLP, NHS
• Experiences and assessments
• Thinking broader about the other background influences - industry benchmarks and corporate reporting requirements
• What key areas of the commercial lease offer the greatest green opportunities?
• Think about where opportunities arise to create sustainable bricks and mortar
• There is an inevitable focus within green leasing on the E, but are there opportunities for the S and the G?
• Drafting tips - Drawing tricky green threads through the documents:
• EPCs - how to mark up? legal context - MEES
• Co-operation/targets and forums
• Costs sharing and recovery
• Alterations
• Other/additional tenant covenants
• Remedies and enforcement on breach - how best to deal with the risk
• Opportunities to introduce green aspirations outside the lease document