Pamela Cone

Amity Advisory, Illinois; Member, ESG Subcommittee, IBA Law Firm Management Committee

Robert van Beemen 

DRB Group, The Hague; Immediate Past Chair, ESG Subcommittee, IBA Law Firm Management Committee

In November 2025, the ESG Subcommittee of the IBA Law Firm Management Committee,^[1] supported by the IBA Latin American Regional Forum, the IBA African Regional Forum, the IBA North American Regional Forum, the IBA Asia Pacific Regional Forum, the IBA European Regional Forum and the IBA Legal Policy & Research Unit, convened a webinar on ‘Law firm ESG decisions in the current geopolitical and economic environment’.

The webinar, moderated by Pamela Cone, Chief Executive Officer of Legal ESG and Officer of the IBA Law Firm Management Committee ESG Subcommittee, brought together legal experts from across jurisdictions to explore the profound but necessary transformation of the traditional framework of environmental, social and governance (ESG) that is currently underway. Together, panellists highlighted that in the face of a turbulent landscape defined by geopolitical conflicts, rapid technological disruption and fundamental shifts in the global economic order, lawyers must adopt a new calculus where ESG concurrently represents economies, security and geopolitics: law firms and their clients must adjust their strategies in a time marked by the ongoing war in Ukraine, instability in the Middle East, escalating US-China tensions, global elections and the accelerating climate crisis.

This article captures highlights from the discussion.^[2]

Geopolitical forces are influencing business decisions around the globe

Speakers observed that multiple and complex geopolitical forces are converging, making a single defining issue difficult to pinpoint. In Sasja Beslik’s^[3] view, recent trends in US tariff policy, economic pressures and political friction are consequences of an attempt by the old world economic order to maintain control over narrative and resources at a time of rising influence from newer economies.

These trends are directly impacting business decisions – including how businesses allocate capital, and where they prioritise growth: for example, the recent conflict between China and Japan resulted in certain seafood products being banned from import into China, and these types of tensions can be expected to influence where businesses base and how they structure their future supply chains.

Anna Babych^[4] highlighted the growing dominance of security and geopolitical considerations in client transactions. Recent conflicts have led to a shifting of strategic priorities, such that many law firms now consider it acceptable to represent defence companies in Europe, and conservative international financial institutions are raising funds for investments in defence: ‘transactions […] always involve a [geopolitical] discussion sooner or later. It’s an important consideration when we speak about investments – this has become the new normal.’

A shifting role for lawyers, firms and legal associations

Robert van Beemen^[5] advised that, in the current environment, firms must possess deep insight into their core clients, markets and work types, warning that firms attempting to serve ‘everybody in every sector’ will struggle to remain strategic legal advisors. Babych reinforced this, noting that the geography of clients truly matters, with some multinational corporations and law firms refocusing from Europe to the Middle East due to changing regulatory and geopolitical contexts.

Van Beemen noted that as well as law firms, the complexity of these converging factors is forcing lawyers and law associations to make difficult decisions. He cited examples of lawyers calling on their national bars to take a stance on geopolitical conflicts, or refusing to represent certain sectors, such as the tobacco and fossil fuel industries.

Offering a different perspective, Beslik expressed surprise at what he considered to be a lack of pronounced international engagement from legal professionals given the visible ‘dismantling of the rule-based order across the world’. He argued that it is fundamentally in the legal profession’s interest to defend this order, as its decay creates tremendous uncertainty for businesses and investors. Babych added that the long-standing habit of neutrality, which has been viewed by lawyers as a safe harbour, is reaching a moment of necessary shift, echoing Van Beemen’s observation that the time for law firms and bar associations to be ‘neutral’ is effectively over.

Despite political backlash, ‘ESG’ remains a strategic necessity

Addressing recent attacks on ESG terminology in the US, Beslik maintained that the debate is largely political: regardless of the terminology we use, the core intention behind the ‘ESG’ concept – to integrate externalities into corporate valuations – remains a fundamental necessity driven by reality. By way of example of how climate change considerations continue to impact corporate decision-making, he cited Japan’s recent experiences of extreme heat (workplace heatstroke casualties reached a record 1,257 last year),^[6] which have driven significant corporate demand for solutions, with specific expos dedicated to selling businesses heat solutions for workers.

Van Beemen added that while firms might use alternative terms to avoid the ‘red button’ of calling a particular measure ‘ESG’ or ‘D&I’, the underlying imperative for businesses to manage these risks remains unchanged. Van Beemen highlighted that many businesses continue to foster renewable energies and initiate solutions to protect biodiversity and nature, and equally, many lawyers continue to actively promote their ESG practices.

What lies ahead? Critical areas of opportunity for businesses and law firms

Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, panellists highlighted a number of critical trends that businesses and law firms should pay close attention to, including:

• Geographic shifts: Beslik highlighted projected drastic demographic changes over coming decades, with up to a third^[7] of Western European populations projected to be over the age of 65 by 2050. Beslik noted that with Africa set to account for a quarter of the world’s population by 2050,^[8] our future may be ‘more Africa centric’, and that these global demographic shifts are going to shift industries, economic sentiments, taxpayer base in many countries and the ability to create expected growth.
• Changing energy demands and sources: The panellists observed the ongoing dominance of the energy sector over the global economy, as energy demand increases, and sources change and shift geographically. Examples of these trends include the rapid adoption of AI as a major driver of growing data centre energy demand, the renaissance of interest in nuclear energy to address this demand and the immense potential of Africa in the renewable energy space, holding 60 per cent^[9] of the world’s solar energy capacity (much of it currently untapped). These trends pose key opportunities and challenges that will shape the global economy and legal work related to data centre development. Babych added the ongoing risk of energy being weaponised in conflict zones (for example, blocking communities from energy access).
• AI will continue to shape legal business: Currently, no legal conversation is complete without a discussion of the impact of AI on the legal business model. The panellists generally agreed that AI would not dramatically change law firms’ billable hour model but would rather become the ‘new normal’ by increasing efficiency (in a similar manner to the arrival of email systems). Van Beemen observed that some major law firms who have embraced AI are already reducing their employee numbers, and Beslik warned that emerging scalable, global AI agents serving niche legal verticals (like M&A) could disrupt the legal sector significantly in future.
• Increasingly complex and conflicting ESG regulation: Babych predicted that despite the rise of AI, lawyers and firms will continue to play a valuable role, particularly as companies require advice about increasingly complex and changeable ESG and AI regulatory frameworks in the EU and beyond: she warned businesses, ‘don’t rely entirely on ChatGPT – talk to your lawyers’, to ensure compliance in these challenging (and often conflicting) regulatory environments.
• Nature and biodiversity as a new frontier of legal risk and opportunity: Van Beemen highlighted the growing global focus on nature and biodiversity-related risks, observing that recently, legal scholars in jurisdictions including the UK,^[10] Australia,^[11] Canada^[12] and New Zealand,^[13] have issued legal opinions warning of liability for directors who fail to consider relevant risks linked to nature and environmental degradation in corporate decision-making. These opinions highlight that ESG is becoming ‘more complex, risky, and is not just a hype’ for businesses and boards. Van Beemen highlighted that the IBA Law Firm Management Committee^[14] and IBA Environment, Health and Safety Law Committee,^[15] working with biodiversity law experts and the IBA’s Legal Policy and Research Unit, are designing a Nature-Intelligent Legal Services Toolkit, to help lawyers understand their clients’ exposure to nature-related risks, with a view to enhancing the legal services that lawyers can provide to their clients, and to raise broader awareness among the legal profession of the importance of nature and its intersections with legal practice.^[16] Nature and biodiversity risks and the Toolkit will be highlighted at the Annual IBA ESG Conference in March 2026.^[17]

The legal profession at an inflexion point

Ultimately, what emerged from the discussion is that the legal profession is at an inflection point. The traditional ‘ESG’ framework has broadened to encompass economies, security and geopolitics: now is the time for law firms to move beyond neutrality, deepen their strategic focus, and take advantage of opportunities to advise clients on a global landscape defined by complex geopolitical tensions, accelerating climate and nature-related risks and the rise of AI.

This article was prepared by the IBA Legal Policy & Research Unit (LPRU), with special thanks to LPRU intern Niharika Julka.