Matthew Gingell

Oxygen House

An instinct for activism has animated general counsel Matthew Gingell throughout his career. Having spent six years as general counsel of Oxygen House, a group of companies aimed at sparking social change, Gingell has learnt to use his buying power to hold law firms accountable on the world’s biggest challenges.

To help the business achieve its social impact goals, he uses requests for proposals as a vehicle to spark change, assessing firms not only for their abilities but also for their corporate responsibility credentials. This matured into the idea of ‘triple impact procurement’, meaning the establishment of three lines of impact from spending one pound on legal services.

In 2020, Gingell advised on the creation of a non-profit energy-efficient seafront development in Exmouth which, as a community interest company, will inject its income back into the community.

He also acted on the redevelopment of an old girls’ school in Exeter into sustainable period homes. Once again, he used legal papers as a force for good; the contract includes a clause that says building contractors will have to keep retro-fitting the building until energy-efficiency targets are hit. As part of this mandate, he asked external legal advisers involved to watch David Attenborough’s Witness Statement movie as a way to raise awareness.

A founding member of the Chancery Lane project, which reunites a number of law firms in efforts to reduce carbon emissions, from 2021 Gingell will step up his procurement philosophy by requiring external firms to fill a ‘net zero legal service provision assessment’ aimed at measuring the carbon footprint of their advice to clients.