Back in July 2021 we formed our Green Team, a group of volunteers from across our three offices to take on the task of reducing the firm’s environmental impact on the world. Our Principals have committed to supporting its recommendations and a programme of action. You can read our environmental policy here.
Since the Green Team was formed, we’ve looked at ways of reducing our environmental footprint wherever possible.
To start our journey, we set ourselves three short term goals which were as follows:
- Look at who we source our procurement from & how we can reduce our usage
- Take part in community action
- Implementing office recycling programme
So, what have we done in the last six months:
Procurement: We have been looking at our options and are trialling a social enterprise company called WildHearts to see if we can use them for the majority of our office supplies.
Energy usage: In a COVID environment, it’s difficult to make comparisons. However, we have been reviewing the energy providers for the three offices and where we manage our own contracts, we’ve switched to green alternative energy providers. Where our managing agents manage these contracts, we have asked whether they are able to make the switch. There’s a conscious effort across all departments to reduce paper and printer usage with a good example in tax where we have moved across or are trialling the use of secured portals to send out tax returns.
Community action: Each office has taken part in litter picks so that we contribute to a cleaner environment around us, and these will continue on a monthly basis going forward. We have also taken part in a tree planting initiative in sponsorship of the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee. As a firm, we’ve also donated £12,000 to The Wildlife Trust. The Trusts protect wildlife and manage conservation in 240 nature reserves across the region, working with businesses, schools, landowners, farmers and many other groups to tackle the climate and nature crisis.
Office recycling: We have rolled out the use of recycling bins for food and mixed recycling in all three of our offices with success. We’ve also ensured with the managing agents for each office that the various recycling will make it to the correct places. Printer toners are also now recycled appropriately.
Going forward, we are looking to start measuring our carbon footprint as a business and so we can report on the impact of our efforts. Based on this, we’ll look to set longer term goals to continue to reduce our emissions as a business.
We’ve still got a long way to go and there will be more coming out of the group over the next six months, but this is a firm wide initiative and so we encourage our people to come forward with ideas that we can look to implement going forward.
