Our Environment

A year of action

In 2021, we planted 165 trees as part of our Plant a Tree project

Combatting climate change

To mark Earth Day 2021, we encouraged our staff to get involved with our Plant a Tree project. Whether staff had a small balcony or a sprawling back garden, our eFORCE team provided 80 trees free of charge to suit every setting.

Trees included the mighty Susan Magnolia Tree – with spectacular, tulip-shaped flowers for bees to pollinate – and the Rowan Tree which, alongside producing delicious Rowan berries when mature, can consume up to 22kg of carbon dioxide per year. Our staff also self-funded the purchase of 85 trees to plant at their homes, bringing our total number of trees planted in 2021 up to 165. A typical tree absorbs around 21kgs of carbon dioxide per year when fully grown, meaning at maturity, these trees could collectively absorb 3,465kg of carbon dioxide per year.

This project was a resounding success and we hope to carry out similar initiatives in the future to encourage even more of our staff to take control of their environmental footprint.

Towards a more sustainable future

In February 2021, Charles Russell Speechlys purchased Friends of the Earth Planet Protector Packs for members of staff that were home-schooling their children aged five to 11 during the pandemic.

The packs were designed to encourage environmental awareness from a young age and included fun and educational activities to inspire curious children such as wildflower seeds, information on nature games and educational activity books. All the packs purchased by the firm were snapped up and each pack we purchased contributed to the Friends of the Earth campaign for a more sustainable future – a cause strongly supported by the Firm.

Pedalling for the planet

Charles Russell Speechlys has invested in a new fleet of eBIKES for our London office.

The bikes will facilitate travel between meetings in the city in a more carbon-efficient manner while recognising changing working practices in the post-pandemic environment. Many of our employees are not always comfortable about taking public transport in order to commute to meetings and the eBIKES present an inner-city solution that is also environmentally friendly.

From paper to ‘Paperlite’

Following our adoption of our new “Paperlite Policy” we are pursuing an approach which combines digitisation with traditional working practices to significantly reduce our use of paper. We are also shifting away from pre-printed letterhead and continuation paper towards digital printing on lighter-weight plain paper. Alongside home working, this will result in fewer trees felled, fewer printers, less paper recycling required, and less CO2 expended due to a major reduction in our paper consumption from the baseline figure of nearly 7 million sheets of general paper used in the London office in 2019.

1.3 million KWH

All three of our UK offices use green energy suppliers. In 2020, our 5 Fleet Place site added 1.3 million KWH of green energy to the National Grid.

Latex gloves out, biodegradable gloves in

PVC gloves are notoriously harmful to the environment as they do not break down in general waste, are not easily recyclable and contain harmful chemicals. Our new biodegradable gloves, introduced across all of our UK offices, can be disposed of in food waste bins and break down with, and at the same rate as, food waste.

Webex cameras on

Our video conferencing platform Webex allowed us to continue operating during the pandemic and continues to support our 2030 net zero carbon emissions target. With 45% of our carbon emissions relating to travel in 2019, the firm expects these emissions to reduce significantly, even after lockdown restrictions have been lifted. Indeed, across the UK, the Climate Change Committee’s 2021 Report to Parliament revealed that, as homeworking increased, a decline in commuting resulted in an 18% reduction in ‘surface transport’ emissions alone. *

60

new cycle spaces were added to our 5 Fleet Place site in 2020 (an increase of 86%).

70% less energy

We have added low-power LEDs to the lift lobbies in 5 Fleet Place as part of our promise to replace traditional lighting with low-power LEDs, wherever possible. These lights use up to 70% less energy.

SECR report

Our annual SECR report – Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting – helps our reporting on a range of environmental matters, including our Scope 1 carbon emissions (direct emissions from owned or controlled sources) and Scope 2 carbon emissions (indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy).

Coming soon...

eBIKES to launch in London

The new bikes will facilitate staff travel between meetings in the city.

Improving environmental performance

We are developing a new environmental management system within the next six months, which will help us achieve ISO 14001 standard.

New Design for our Main Control Room

Main Control Rooms are traditionally power hungry. We aim to make considerable energy savings as part of an ongoing re-design project. We are currently minimising the number of servers and amount of equipment that the room supports and powers and, as part of the new design, we will be examining how we can maintain temperatures within the room in an energy efficient manner.

* Source: DfT (2021) Transport use during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic; CCC analysis, cited in Progress-in-reducing-emissions-2021-Report-to-Parliament.pdf (theccc.org.uk)

Alumni • Legal Notices • Accessibility • Privacy Notice • Fraudulent or 'scam' communication • Complaints Procedure • COVID Secure Certification • Pricing Information