Edited by Nigel Pleming KC, Richard Wilmot-Smith KC, Stephen Tromans KC, Karim Ghaly KC, Camilla ter Haar and Stephanie David. Published by the London Publishing Partnership, January 2025. ISBN: 9781916749214. Price Hardback £125.00.

This book is a seminal work on the interaction between legal frameworks, the built environment and the natural environment.

Across 41 chapters, the reader is given an insight into the full ambit of issues that have arisen in recent years when lawmakers and the courts have been required to address the challenges posed by human development and climate change, as well as issuing rallying calls to all corners of the construction industry and related industries as to how they might contribute to the net zero agenda.

In the opening section of the book, the reader is given a comprehensive introduction to the relevant stakeholders concerned with the development and advancement of the net zero agenda as well as the legal frameworks that have developed to support and implement it globally or at a trans-national level, as well as the domestic frameworks within the UK.

Foundational to the book and the wider legal framework that applies to the law of climate change and net zero are several key definitions and concepts. At the start of each chapter, helpfully, the reader is given a brief re-introduction to the relevant concepts that apply to the respective subject matter. Two key definitions for construction practitioners that arise often in the book are in relation to carbon emissions: embodied carbon (emissions associated with the materials, construction, maintenance, repair demolition and disposal of a building) and operational carbon (emissions associated with the use of energy within a building). These terms are likely be familiar to practitioners who are involved in procurement-led activities but will be increasingly important for all legal practitioners to consider now that there is an increasing focus on carbon performance over the lifecycle of a building as a contractual standard, failures to comply with which may sound in a claim in damages.

Sections VI to VIII of this book will be of particular interest to construction law practitioners (both contentious and non-contentious) who are keen to obtain a firm grounding in the myriad of considerations which the construction industry must take into account when planning new works or appraising the performance of existing buildings.

In particular, those practising in the area of professional negligence disputes will find interesting commentary on the duties upon construction professionals to advise in relation to net zero at Chapter 41 which explains