A decrease in environmental consumption by Australian law firms in the 2011 Financial Year is encouraging, according to Henry Davis York's chief operating officer, Kelvin O'Connor.
Mr O'Connor, who is also co-chair of the Australian Legal Sector Alliance (AusLSA) presented the results of the second Environmental Consumption of AusLSA members 2010/11 report, last night.
"This year's report has highlighted a number of successes namely the reduction of energy consumption and paper usage, and has provided a roadmap for future sustainability improvements with the AusLSA membership," Mr O'Connor said.
Fifteen AusLSA members (75% of its membership) participated in the report. Of these, eight of the members which were foundation members of AusLSA, contributed for the second time, enabling year-on-year comparisons amongst that group.
Mr O'Connor said that at a first glance the footprints presented by the group of eight foundation members may not present a rosy picture, as the total emissions have slightly increased. However, he said that this was mainly attributable to business travel as consumption had decreased in electricity and paper.
The report covered five different contributors to legal firms' carbon footprints of energy consumption, business travel, paper, waste, and offsetting.
Key findings in the report included:
- a reduction of 3.9% in energy consumption
- AusLSA members consumed an average of 115kg of paper per employee in FY11, a 7% decrease in paper consumption from the previous year
- high use of recycling tools amongst AusLSA members
- 33.3% of all emissions derived from business travel.
Henry Davis York is a foundation member of the AusLSA which was formed in 2010 to assist legal firms in Australia to identify opportunities to improve business efficiencies, to develop and enthusiasm to enhance the reputation of the legal sector as a whole and to meet the growing demand from employees for their employers to take sustainability issues seriously.
Henry Davis York is committed to its sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiatives. The firm has become the leading law firm in this field and in the last three years has published three independently assured sustainability reports and received recognition for these at the ACCA Sustainability Reporting Awards.