Companies in virtually every industry have discovered that "going green" is more than just good PR; it's also good business. Businesses that have made a commitment to environmental responsibility have been able to cut costs by reducing the amount of energy and raw materials they use, reduce the waste they must dispose of, and even reducing their insurance premiums through improved environmental practices.
Of course, there are also wider benefits to be realized, such as an improvement in how the business is perceived by customers and a possible reputation boost among employees, regulators, investors and members of the local community.
For those of us who work in the legal services business, the document-intensive nature of our industry makes environmental considerations all the more significant.
Environmental Sustainability
One of the buzzwords of 21st century international business is the notion of environmental sustainability. In broad strokes, this concept refers to the ability of the environment to support a defined level of environmental quality and natural resource extraction rates indefinitely. That's obviously a tall order for any one individual or business to try to tackle, but a more accessible way to think of it might be the simple idea of seeking to balance economic and environmental performance in the way a company conducts its business affairs.
For example, environmental sustainability initiatives may promote the reduction of toxins emitted into the environment through pollution prevention techniques, rather than compliance regulations. Or they may seek to reduce the volume of paper pulp that is consumed by increasing the use of recycled paper and decreasing the amount of paper that is needed for a job function that can't be performed in a paperless environment.
The point of any kind of environmental sustainability effort is to minimize the ecological impact of human activity to levels that our environment can sustain, and still maintain the economic viability for business and commerce.
Business and the Environment
In recent years, public interest in environmental sustainability issues has forced these matters into the boardrooms of major corporations.
Companies of all sizes - and especially the largest ones - are being called upon to formally address sustainability in their operations and supply chains. In fact, some estimates suggest that as many as 80% of the Global Fortune 250 companies are now disclosing sustainability or corporate responsibility reports as a matter of corporate governance policy.
The truth is that a number of these companies initially got on board the environmental sustainability train because they felt it was the right thing to do -- but we're now on the other side of those early adopters. Companies, government agencies and non-profit organizations alike now realize that sustainable business practices are typically smart business practices as well.
That brings us to the legal services industry, a notoriously document-intensive and research-fueled business that is often associated with conspicuous consumption of resources. According to the American Bar Association, a typical law firm in Washington, D.C. purchases as much as 100,000 sheets of paper per attorney each year - that's enough paper pulp to generate more than 10 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per lawyer and is a stunning 10 times the amount of paper used by an average office worker in the U.S.
The sustainability issue is just as ubiquitous in the corporate law department environment as it is inside law firms, where many corporate executives are faced with the challenge of meeting their corporate environmental commitments in the face of growing interest to bring more litigation work in-house. It's hard to keep those "green" commitments when the volume of litigation documents is flying fast and furiously.
Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Legal Services
As with companies in the general marketplace, the first law firms and legal service providers to get serious about reducing their carbon footprints were the true believers who saw the intrinsic importance of sustainability.
However, a growing number of firms have since come to appreciate the importance of focusing on environmental considerations as a key to managing costs and working more efficiently. In addition, some firms have had to catch up to clients that have made sustainability a governance priority and therefore infused their RFPs with detailed questions about how prospective law firms manage their own environmental policies.
Please click here to download the entire white paper.