DLA Piper
In January 2007, DLA Piper launched the Global Sustainability Initiative to affirm our commitment to reducing environmental impact and conducting business responsibly. We achieved global certification to ISO 14001 in December 2007.
There are a number of reasons for companies to implement environmental management and low-carbon strategies. For us, the business drivers are compelling. Our vision is simply "To be the leading global business law firm, delivering quality, value-added services to our clients, globally and locally." Given the huge - and growing - importance of environmental issues in the public sphere, and in particular the issues it raises for our risk management, we feel that a strategy to address our impacts globally is essential. As an added impetus, many of our clients find it reassuring that we have a cohesive sustainability strategy.
Moreover, as a responsible business, we feel the need to do everything in our power to champion the wider transition to more sustainable world. We recognise that the intellectual needs of our business and our global network place us in a unique position to have a real impact on this agenda. This is something that our people want to support, and it is becoming a real factor in maintaining and recruiting the highest calibre of candidates.
In January 2007, DLA Piper introduced the Global Sustainability Initiative to affirm our commitment to reducing our environmental impact and to ensuring that we conduct our business in a responsible manner.
Our Global Sustainability Initiative is a 'living strategy' designed to adapt according to best practice, new scientific consensus, and changing stakeholder expectations. At the core of the strategy is minimising environmental impacts at the outset, rather than just offsetting.
The three key features of our Global Sustainability Initiative are:
- Certification to ISO 14001, the globally accepted standard for environmental management systems
- Achievement of carbon neutrality for all business air travel - with minimisation of air travel
- Setting of impact reduction targets in the key areas of energy, waste, travel and procurement; and the implementation of a comprehensive set of measures designed to achieve these targets.
We have progressed well with our environmental ambitions. We achieved global certification to ISO 14001 in December 2007. We will purchase over 10,000 tonnes of carbon offsets in early 2008 to offset all air travel from 2007. And in May 2008 we held the first of four environmental campaigns - the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" to improve our waste management practices.
The field of environmental management is in a state of relative infancy. Best practice evolves at a rapid rate, and it can be very difficult to keep up. In some areas, it is easy to feel powerless to act or paralysed by seemingly insurmountable challenges.
The key to overcoming these barriers is to design a flexible system that is able to change over time. This allows a strategy to stay current and effective, without being tied to any controversial practices that, at the time, may have seemed the best option.
As with many things, the first steps are often the hardest. It is easy to become mired in the debates and the uncertainty. We have found that benefits are quickly realised, which adds momentum to environmental initiatives. Costs reductions are a compelling motivation, and these are likely to be among the first wins. But employee motivation and brand enhancement can prove just as valuable. Environmental issues are also a great space in which to engage clients and suppliers.
- Cost reductions. In the Glasgow office alone, we have seen a 15% reduction in energy bills (and commensurate carbon emissions) over the last two years.
- Increased brand equity. Through our leadership in the environmental field, we have been able to put our brand into many new places.
- Client engagement. Our environmental endeavours have led us to establish closer relationships with many of our clients.
- Staff recruitment and retention. Our people have shown a real appetite for our responsible approach to environmental management. Our environmental programme helps us to have a retention rate that is well above the industry average.
- Carbon reductions. Our actions will lead to considerable reductions in our carbon footprint. To reduce our impacts further, we are offsetting some 10,500 tonnes of CO2 from our business air travel in 2007.