The Chancery Lane Project (TCLP), a UK legal charity, has launched a free open-source AI tool that gives lawyers immediate access to around 200 contract clauses designed to cut carbon emissions. The technology connects to common legal AI platforms via APIs, letting legal teams copy and paste climate provisions into contracts after human review.
How the API-powered tool works
The tool was built using open-source software, including technology from Anthropic, and integrates with legal AI assistants like Harvey and Legora, as well as general-purpose platforms such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. Organisations already using it include the UK government's Cabinet Office, telecom company Vodafone, and law firm Clyde & Co.
Reducing the friction of climate clauses
Felix Cohen, TCLP's director of digital, said the aim is to "make climate risk a bigger part of what goes into contracts." He added that the tool cuts drafting time for environmental clauses from weeks to hours by offering lawyers immediate access to years of best practice in sustainability law.
"Lawyers want to insert climate-friendly clauses into contracts for commercial and… ideological reasons to be environmental," Cohen said. "To do so, they have to overcome commercial resistance, internal resistance. People [are] effectively saying, 'If we don't need to do this, why would we do this? Will it cost us money? Will it cost us time?' And so, anything that we can provide to grease the wheels [will be helpful for lawyers]."
A growing ecosystem of climate clause resources
Alongside the API tool, TCLP released an open-source Model Context Protocol server that lets AI assistants and agentic legal tools "compare clauses, benchmark drafting and identify opportunities to strengthen climate provisions or reduce greenwashing risk," the organisation said. In April, TCLP also launched TCLP Labs, a digital platform with a tracker that monitors whether firms keep climate promises and flags clauses that contradict sustainability targets.
According to 2024 research by Wolters Kluwer, 68% of US law firms and corporate legal departments reported increased demand for ESG legal expertise. Yet only 41% of corporate legal professionals and 29% of law firms said they felt "very prepared" to meet that demand.
Why this matters for legal professionals
For legal professionals, the tool signals a practical step toward integrating AI for Legal Professionals into everyday contract work, especially as ESG demands rise. With nearly seven in ten legal teams seeing more ESG requests but few feeling prepared, free access to standardised climate clauses can reduce the time and friction of drafting while keeping human oversight central. Cohen said if TCLP is "loud enough" at this early stage of AI and legaltech, "an opportunity for our way of thinking to become quite standardised" exists.
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