The Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA) is promoting a more environmentally sustainable dispute resolution process with the launch of the ACICA Sustainability Protocol: Towards More Sustainable Arbitral Proceedings. Published in January 2025, the Protocol encourages parties and tribunals to adopt sustainability measures and commit to reducing the carbon emissions associated with resolving disputes. The Protocol seeks to align ACICA arbitration practice with the global pathway to zero emissions.

The Protocol will raise awareness of the significant emissions generated by dispute resolution and provide a simple tool that the parties and tribunal may use to measure emissions and incentivise their reduction in the arbitration process. It empowers the parties and tribunal to adopt practices to reduce emissions by minimising travel; using electronic documents and communications; the sustainable management of data; conducting virtual hearings where possible; and engaging energy efficient service providers.

Key provisions of the Protocol include:

• A process to agree a carbon budget, being an estimate of the carbon emissions the parties anticipate generating during the proceedings, to enhance accountability for reducing their CO2 emissions.
• Using carbon emissions scorecards for each party and the tribunal to track and estimate the carbon emissions associated with the arbitration process. A carbon emissions scorecards template is provided in the Protocol.
• If the parties agree, for the tribunal to take into account the performance of the parties against their carbon budget in any costs award.

Notably, the Protocol is not mandatory and parties may customise the carbon emissions scorecards and agree bespoke carbon budgets. The Protocol is intended to allow participants flexibility to select specific sustainability measures, without an obligation to adopt all of them. The provisions in the Protocol are also subject to the overriding principles of procedural fairness, equality of treatment, and the right to be heard.

Parties to arbitrations and their legal representatives are already adopting a number of these initiatives, particularly in regard to electronic discovery and witness evidence. The Protocol is an important step in further encouraging dispute resolution practices that will deliver emission reductions.

The published ACICA Sustainability Protocol: Towards More Sustainable Arbitral Proceedings is available here.