FWD Law - Solicitors South Wales : A Case Study

About FWD Law

fwdlaw was established in 2003 and provides a variety of legal services including business services conveyancing, employment, family, personal injury, wills and probate. Landlord and Business Services are also an important part of the business service and our organisation rents out part of their premises. As such, fwdlaw has first hand experience of the difficulties facing commercial landlords from varying perspectives.

Our commitment to environmental improvement

Consideration of our impact on the environment is high on our business agenda and it does make good bottom-line business sense. We have recently demonstrated to government agencies that our commitment to environmental issues is sound and have successfully assisted one of our clients in the bidding for former government land for commercial development.

As a business

We have also endeavoured to improve our own environmental credentials through our achievements with the Green Dragon Environmental Management System scheme. Building on this, we have strengthened our efforts through our participation in the Cardiff University SEnvICS project, which has provided support, training and advice to us covering a range of issues, including an innovative approach to leasing our premises and advising our clients.

With continued support from the project team at CRiBE in Cardiff University, fwdlaw is now investigating opportunities for the incorporation of “green” clauses into new commercial lease agreements on behalf of our clients. We feel that the energy performance of a building is important, particularly in light of more stringent legislation now in force together with the introduction of Energy Performance Certificates later in the year.

As such, our efforts at present are focused mainly on setting obligations in place in the lease contract for the monitoring of energy and reduction in consumption.

We believe this to be sound advice to commercial landlords – the ability to monitor and work with tenants to achieve better energy conservation will lead in time to higher returns from energy efficient property portfolios – good for the environment = good for business.