We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously. We believe that a demonstrable and continually evolving environmental policy is an important part of our business.
We have a number of policies and initiatives in operation to ensure that both the firm as a whole, and individual employees. strive to reduce the environmental impact of our business activity.
Our dedicated green team promotes and updates Hill Dickinson’s environmental policy on an ongoing basis. The Management Board is involved in all of the team’s activities.
Carbon footprint/carbon zero status
Using a British Standard measuring protocol, Hill Dickinson’s carbon footprint per employee is now below the UK average.
Hill Dickinson was the first UK law firm to have carbon zero status. Initially this was gained by tree planting alone. Looking ahead, a mixture of community woodland planting and energy efficiency schemes in Africa will be used.
A few examples of our many initiatives regarding energy use are summarised below.
We currently have more than 50 energy reduction/sustainability initiatives in place including:
- Hill Dickinson’s energetic green team which issues regular reminders to employees to conserve energy by - for example - switching off unused equipment. Many office lights are set to switch off automatically. There are also regular audits of work areas to ensure that equipment is switched off when not in use.
- Our office waste is dealt with by a specialist waste management company that arranges sorting and recycling of all recyclable goods such as glass/bottles/metals/card etc.
- We are in the process of arranging the supply of electricity to all locations via an accredited ‘green’ energy supplier.
- The firm encourages staff to travel to work on public transport by assisting with the purchase of travel passes. Cycling to work is encouraged via our flexible benefits system and several offices have secure bicycle parks and showers for staff use.
- We also support the Department of Transport’s Cycle2Work initiative which allows employees to purchase cycles and equipment and benefit from tax and national insurance savings arrangements.
- Business travel is reduced by use of teleconferencing and video conferencing. Wherever possible, business travel is done by public transport. Taxi services are currently being evaluated in order to move towards the use of carbon neutral firms only.
External environmental initiatives
Hill Dickinson is a founder member of the Managing Partners’
Forum Sustainability Project. We work alongside other law firms to
provide support to small companies looking to improve their
environmental performance. We also participate in the Prince of
Wales Environmental Initiative which brings together UK firms with
a commitment to becoming more environmentally friendly.
