Environmental activities in London

Our London office continues to seek ways of being more environmentally friendly. In 1995, we were one of the first firms to sign up to the UK Department of the Environment’s ‘Making a corporate commitment’ campaign, which encourages businesses to reduce their environmental impact.

Our successive Clean City Awards since 1999 show we have reduced our impact on the environment by reusing and recycling resources, minimising waste, using green energy and encouraging the use of public transport and cycling.

Reducing fuel consumption

In our first corporate social responsibility report, we reported that we had cut our car park spaces to provide more cycle parking and use Radio Taxis, a CarbonNeutral taxi service. Since then, we have introduced hybrid cars for our on-call service and an electric van for local deliveries, and we recycle 150 litres of cooking oil each month to make bio-diesel for our taxi company.

Energy saving

In total, we have invested over £300,000 in energy saving improvements since our 2004/5 report, including introducing advanced lighting controls, water system sensors and inverters for extract fans; commissioning a lower-energy chiller to replace an existing one; and investing in our own infrared camera to inspect our buildings for adequacy of insulation and energy waste.

Our desktop PCs are usually replaced every three years to accommodate new software. All of these are eco-friendly according to Energy Star and Blue Angel criteria. The packaging from all PCs is collected and reused by our suppliers. We have also reduced the number of laptops in use from around 1,000 to 250, as laptops use significantly more energy than desktops, and replaced most of our standard 15 inch CRT monitors with more energy efficient 17 inch TFT screens.

Our electricity use is down by 7 per cent since we made our commitment to going CarbonNeutral® in December 2006.

Mugs, mineral water and composting

We replaced waxed cups with china mugs in November 2007, which we estimate will save a further 4.8 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. We also introduced a food composting initiative into all our kitchen areas in collaboration with the East London Community Recycling Partnership, which means 2.4 tonnes of food waste per month that previously went to landfill is now used to make compost for local parks and charity projects, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 30 tonnes a year.

We no longer buy in bottled mineral water, saving an estimated 11 tonnes of CO2 equivalent a year, and have increased the amount of fair trade and organic food and wine available in our catering areas.

Recycling

We recycle 95 per cent of the toner cartridges we use and continue to recycle or donate to charities and schools the furniture and equipment we no longer use.

We recycle and recondition all our telephone handsets where possible. An average of 7 out of 10 is repaired. The rest are sent to a recycling depot that specialises in preventing landfill waste disposal. In autumn 2007, we replaced our people’s mobile phones and BlackBerry PDAs with a single BlackBerry that is also used as a mobile phone, significantly reducing the number of phone chargers in use.

Following a refurbishment programme, we sent 14 tonnes of furniture to Green-Works for reuse and recycling in August and September 2006. We use Forest Stewardship Council approved woods for new wooden furniture and doors.

Our decorations for the Christmas 2007 festive season were made from waste recycled from our offices.

Reducing paper

In 2006 and 2007, we supported the Crisis Christmas Card initiative, making a donation to the charity for homeless people and using their e-card instead of paper cards. We are increasingly switching to email for invitations, monthly accounts statements and client briefings as we seek to reduce the amount of paper we use. In autumn 2007 we launched a paper recycling initiative with our suppliers Arriba, which means all our used paper is recycled and returned to us as new.