Morrison & Foerster worked with longtime pro bono client The Nature Conservancy (TNC) on the Pacific Island Tuna project, a partnership between TNC and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) that is designed to transform the global canned tuna supply chain.  Morrison & Foerster provided legal advice in connection with the creation of Pacific Island Tuna, a TNC-RMI partnership that will supply sustainable canned tuna to Walmart stores across the United States.

Arnold & Porter provided legal help to SkyBaron, an e-commerce, branding, and informational platform for consumer products made with captured and upcycled CO2 (i.e. CO2 waste/byproduct that has been captured and is put to reuse in other products, such as soap, plastic, and clothing). The platform will be built around a method of certification for these products to educate consumers and allow carbontech businesses to promote and improve their products while also preventing greenwashing.

Nixon Peabody attorneys helped New Partners Community Solar and its nonprofit affordable housing partner finance and develop approximately 1.5 megawatts of solar energy on the rooftops of more than 60 garden apartment buildings in the District’s most economically disadvantaged ward – all for the benefit of low- and very low-income DC households under DC’s Solar for All program. Nixon Peabody attorneys also helped NP Solar mitigate the impact of the pandemic on its mission to provide utility savings for low-income families in Washington, DC. The nonprofit’s solar arrays, placed throughout the District, generate energy for local utilities in exchange for bill credits to families in need. When the pandemic shuttered the school where NP Solar’s latest project was located, causing a sharp reduction in the amount of energy produced, NP attorneys helped the nonprofit develop an advanced technology solution with energy storage. Their work kept the power—and thus the utility credits—flowing to low-income District residents.

Cooley provides pro bono support to Mars Materials, a social enterprise founded in 2021 working to reverse industrial waste emissions by developing technologies that store CO2 into everyday products.  Mars Materials places captured CO2 into plastics and carbon fibers by converting waste-CO2 into acrylonitrile and drastically improving the resource intensive acrylonitrile production process used to create electronics, clothes, and carpets.  Cooley attorneys provide pro bono corporate governance and contracts support to the company.

Through The Nature Conservancy, Ropes & Gray was part of a multi-law firm project assisting the nation of Belize to launch a groundbreaking sovereign debt restructuring that will also generate an estimated US$180M for marine conservation.  The innovative financial transaction will support Belize’s commitment to protect 30% of its ocean, strengthen governance frameworks for domestic and high sea fisheries, and establish a regulatory framework for coastal blue carbon projects.

Orrick helped Amped Innovation close a highly complicated debt financing transaction with the European Development Finance Institutions.  A designer and manufacturer of solar-powered appliances and solar energy generation and management equipment, Amped Innovation creates products that help those living under $4 per day to increase their incomes using affordable productive use power. The company is developing a new generation of highly efficient DC appliances, focusing on televisions, cold-chain, water pumping and diesel generator replacement solutions that are affordable to low-income segments. The $6 million EDFI loan facility will allow Amped Innovation to buy inventory and build and deploy new solar lighting and TV systems.

A team from Morrison & Foerster’s London and Berlin offices are helping Biodiversity & Ecosystem Futures Limited, a European social enterprise, to structure a financial instrument that will help sustainability-focused projects raise capital.  In addition to structuring the financial instrument, the team is drafting terms and conditions for the platform on which the instrument will be offered, and advising on the terms of BEF’s blockchain-based, peer-to-peer carbon asset trading platform.

Michelman & Robinson provided legal support to a startup seeking to make desalination a more sustainable way to provide fresh water to communities.  Olokun Minerals is working to use captured brine waste toward power generation, renewable energy storage, and more environmentally friendly concrete aggregates and road de-icing agents. Its solution diverts harmful saline drainage water away from ocean life and marine ecosystems.

Eden Reforestation Projects, a nonprofit organization based in California, has developed a pioneering way to disrupt the cycle of poverty that contributes to deforestation: pay impacted communities a fair wage for planting and protecting native trees. Planting native crops provides thriving food sources for humans and animals alike, while restoring mangrove forests improves ocean and coral reef health for communities reliant on fishing. Latham has provided pro bono support to Eden on a range of innovative projects, and we’re proud to have helped Eden scale to become one of the largest private reforestation organizations in the world. To date, Eden has implemented over 230 projects at different sites in nine developing countries.

Seyfarth Shaw provided contractual advice and assistance for a non-profit that leverages solar power to build their work on health, education and economic development. The organization operates programs in the developing world around entrepreneurship training, education, production and maintenance of solar products.

Michelman & Robinson provided legal support to Symbrosia, Inc., a mission-aligned agricultural technology start up working on a cattle feedstock supplement made from a red seaweed that reduces methane emissions by 90%.

Michelman & Robinson provided legal support Polaris Renewables, a start-up incorporated to commercialize technology that was developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  This technology can replace toxic and non-biodegradable and non-recyclable petroleum-based polyurethanes with sustainable bio-based polyurethanes.