by: Michael Orey & Sonia Semienchuk, NYU School of Law
NEW YORK, June 10—The 2021 Grunin Prize for Law and Social Entrepreneurship was announced on Wednesday, June 9. This prize recognizes lawyers’ participation in the ways in which business is increasingly advancing the goals of sustainability and human development, and rewards the innovation and potential impact of projects and solutions developed by lawyers to advance the fields of social entrepreneurship and impact investing.
The 2021 Grunin Prize was awarded to the Argentine law firm Beccar Varela in recognition of the support the firm provided to the RAMCC Trust, a versatile contractual vehicle structured by the Argentine Network of Municipalities against Climate Change (RAMCC) for the purpose of financing and investing in projects that generate positive environmental, economic and social impacts for the direct benefit of the municipality that are members of the Trust. This vehicle is the first of its kind in Latin America. It was designed to enable multiple public municipalities of different sizes and regions of Argentina the opportunity to jointly pursue and finance significant sustainability projects in a transparent, scalable and cost‐efficient way. Members of the Grunin Prize‐winning team at Beccar Varela are Daniel Levi (Partner); Carolina Serra (Partner); Dorothea Garff (Senior Associate); Santiago Barbarán (Senior Associate); Constanza Connolly (Counsel); Evangelina Petrizza (Head of Sustainability Department); Diana Warszawski (Junior Associate); and Agostina Coniglio (Junior Associate). More information about the project is available on RAMCC’s website (www.ramcc.net).
“We are deeply honored and grateful for being awarded the Grunin Prize, which is not only a wonderful recognition for our team, but also for the hundreds of Argentine municipalities that believed from the beginning that the RAMCC Trust could become a powerful tool in their mission to protect the environment, creating a better place to live for their citizens. As lawyers, we are confident that we can be game‐changers for helping impact projects to succeed, and this acknowledgment strengthens our enthusiasm to keep driving sustainability initiatives forward,” said Daniel Levi, Partner, Beccar Varela.
Established in 2017 with a generous endowment from NYU Law graduates Jay Grunin ’67 and Linda Kalmanowitz Grunin ’67, and the Grunin Foundation, the Grunin Center for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, the first center of its kind at a law school, is dedicated to enhancing the community of lawyers and legal institutions engaged in social entrepreneurship and impact investing and accelerating its effective participation in these fields. The Grunin Center does this through education, knowledge dissemination, and field‐building collaborations.
“In a year that has caused so much hardship and loss for the world, the 2021 Grunin Prize finalists worked tirelessly to drive impact, advance equity and solve challenges to improve the quality of life for all. Their commitment to creating lasting change through their innovative contributions in the legal field of social entrepreneurship and impact investing is inspiring. I am humbled to be a part of their journey,” said Jay Grunin, co‐founder and chairman of the Grunin Foundation.