Environmental Policy and IS014001 Accreditation
Our work with Envolve, a Bath based charity aimed at promoting sustainable positive environmental practices to businesses, motivated us to raise awareness of environmental issues and introduce an Environmental Policy to address these issues in the workplace. We formed a Green Office Group to move this project forward and to ensure the Environmental Policy is maintained, developed and promoted across the firm.
Some of the Green initiatives introduced to date are:
- Purchasing only Fairtrade tea, coffee and sugar
- Paper reduction and recycling schemes
- Plastic bottle recycling
- IT equipment recycling
- Energy management initiatives
- Video conferencing facilities to reduce the need for travel between our offices
Having achieved our aim of raising awareness within the firm, and addressing some of the environmental issues, we decided to go one step further and apply for accreditation, the International Environmental Standard ISO14001. We contracted SGS as our Auditors for this project and on 15th November 2005, Lyons Davidson's Bristol Offices were awarded the ISO14001 Accreditation. We are the first firm of Solicitors in the United Kingdom to have achieved this.
Our current Environmental Objectives for the year are:
- To reduce consumption of paper per head of Lyons Davidson staff
- To reduce electricity use in all our buildings
- To encourage active commuting and sustainable business travel among all our staff
- To use the expertise of our Environment, Health and Safety legal department to educate and raise awareness of environmental management, internally and externally to Lyons Davidson
- To standardise our environmental management system across all our offices, based on the success of our Bristol Head Office
- To measure and reduce our carbon emissions, and demonstrate a reduction from 2009 levels
- To develop a system for procuring goods and services in an environmentally sustainable manner
