Mills & Reeve
As a national law firm with 6 offices, we have wanted to play our part in reducing our carbon footprint. We have looked at each office individually to see what is being done, what can be done and what needs to be done. The following case study is an example of how we reduced paper deliveries to our Cambridge office.
The Cambridge office is the largest office of the portfolio, so any positive changes here would enable us to see the quickest results. We have many ideas, some of which inter-relate with one another. This case study highlights the use, movement and disposal of paper and how we have reduced our carbon footprint by consolidating activities.
We considered all deliveries and collections being made to and from the site on a weekly basis, then analysed if these were necessary journeys, and whether we could reduce or remove them altogether.
We previously had "Company A" who weren’t particularly local to us making collection of waste and confidential paper (around 45 sacks) from our site on a weekly basis; we had "Company B" who were based closer to us making 'when required' visits to site to dispose of boxed materials (around 100 boxes) for permanent destruction; and finally "Company C" who are based locally to us undertaking twice daily deliveries and collections to site, delivering and collecting live matter boxed materials to/from our off site storage facility.
By evaluating those journeys it became apparent that we could remove one provider altogether and look to reduce the visits of another, both of these having positive carbon reduction effects.
We served notice on "Company A" altogether and moved the collection of waste and confidential paper as a new contract to "Company B" who already visited us on an as and when basis to collect our boxed items for permanent destruction. In order to make this work, we changed the size of the internal receptacles on the floors to make sure we had the on site storage capacity that we needed to go longer between collections - the new receptacles offered by "Company B" allowed almost 4 times the previous capacity of storage, and were more friendly to manual handling considerations. There was also a financial saving in doing this, as it meant we could now reduce the frequency of collections to fortnightly.
Furthermore, we consulted with "Company B" on the collection day, and agreed with them to collect on the same day of the week as other significant contracts in the immediate area, this again meant that we were being environmentally aware and not causing unnecessary journeys to be made, just for our contract waste.
By chance we were then contacted by "Company C" who had recently started a waste paper disposal solution, however this was not an 'on site' offering, which we preferred for all confidential papers. Instead we asked them to help us with the disposal of our boxed materials for permanent destruction, which due to volume and the material being in boxes, had previously been done via supplementary visits of "Company B" when needed. "Company C" were able to collect the boxes during their routine delivery/collection visits and they arrange the disposal when the items are safely back at the offsite store, and they have accumulated additional materials from other clients.
Again, we were able to negotiate better rates for the destruction as this done over several days as it was not time critical, and we no longer had to have "Company B" send a special vehicle which sat on site for which we were charged waiting time.
By reviewing this area of the business operation, e.g. looking at all deliveries coming to site, and implementing some reasonable adjustments, we have reduced the overall number of collection visits to site, saving mileage, fuel and carbon emissions.
We're very happy as through these relatively minor changes, we have managed to improve the overall service delivery, have reduced carbon emissions through transport reduction and made cost savings for the business.