Image: Mark Linel Padecio/Climate Visuals Countdown

FILE empowers our partners to deliver strategic and innovative legal interventions to address the climate and nature crises.

 

We fund our partners to build legal capacity and ensure access to technical support. Their work promotes the systemic changes that are needed to protect communities from environmental collapse, whilst also upholding justice as society transforms.

With our partners we incubate and co-develop ideas, build legal capacity in key countries, and ensure access to technical and communications support.  

Collectively we support knowledge sharing and learning within a diverse, decentralised but growing community of climate legal practice.

Harjeet Singh, ActionAid International at COP26

Image: Flickr/UN Climate Change

 

Our principles

FILE is committed to the just transition to a post-carbon, regenerative society where nature is protected by law.

To achieve this, the following principles are at the heart of everything we do:

  • Support lawyers in their own countries to bring their own cases

  • Face the global climate and nature crises with integrity and courage

  • Take risks to confront the scale of the challenge

  • Create impact through systemic changes

  • Celebrate and enable our partners

  • Protect our partners and frontline communities

  • Support movements and shift power to communities

  • Support collaborative, diverse, decentralised networks

  • Foster inclusive, trust-based partnerships

  • Provide good stewardship of our resources

  • Increase access to diverse knowledge

 

Our areas of focus

We provide grant-making to support partners in their work pursuing climate and nature justice.

Our work focuses on systems that need the most transformative change, and where we – and our partners – can have the most impact. These are:

  • Just energy transition
    Ensuring a rapid shift away from fossil fuels to renewables, in ways that put impacted communities and workers first.

  • Finance
    Ensuring global finance is aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement.

  • Land Use
    Supporting the protection and regeneration of biodiversity and carbon sinks.

  • Rights and Justice
    Upholding human rights and ensure climate justice is delivered.

  • Biodiversity
    We hope to launch support for legal action to protect biodiversity in the future.