Law Times

Law TiMes • May 25, 2009 FOCUS PAGE 13 tal responsibility, a Canadian law firm is also taking a stance. Dur- ing 2008, Stikeman Elliott LLP engaged an environmental en- gineering firm to have its carbon footprint taken and has since done what had to be done to have the firm declared carbon neutral by the international carbon offsetting provider CarbonNeutral Co. Pierre Raymond, the firm chairman based in Montreal, says that the initiative arose out of the firm's grassroots approach to chari- ty work. "The level of sensitivity of people in the firm has been going up. They brought their concerns to management who said, 'Let's go ahead.' It is consistent with the firm's 'GoingGreen' policy, the firm's environmental sustainability program that reminds people of different initiatives like recycling." Stikemans engaged Pinchin Environmental Ltd. to under- take the greenhouse gas inven- tory, more commonly known as carbon footprinting. Patrick Fancott, formerly the manager of the Pinchin climate change group in Mississauga, says that Pinchin provides this service to industrial and commercial companies and to service firms dealing in telecommunications, banking, and insurance. "Activ- ity is picking up on the corpo- rate/service side of things. For them it is not a big cost or risk. On the manufacturing side, they are waiting for the government to pass regulations." Fancott says the only impera- tive to have the footprint taken is for big industrials who produce over 100 kilotons of greenhouse gases. "It's a very high threshold that no office-based organization could meet, but there are other incentives. Publicly listed com- panies may instigate a carbon disclosure project to meet the desire of shareholders to know if there is any risk associated with carbon emissions. Otherwise the move may be prompted by a desire to 'go green,' to show cor- porate responsibility, or to differ- entiate the company amongst its peers. In Stikeman Elliott's case, there was a wish to engage their employees on their impact." The procedure required to have the footprint taken is dic- tated by international standards in the area. "There are different sets of rules," says Fancott, cit- ing the Greenhouse Gas Proto- col put out by the World Re- sources Institute and the carbon accounting standards put out by the International Organiza- tion for Standardization. "In the service sector, the first step is to set the organizational boundaries," Fancott explains. "The second is to look within that entity for sources or 'scopes' of greenhouse gas emission." Scope 1 covers the direct emis- sions of the facility, such as energy use for heating and air condition- ing. Scope 2 refers to emissions that happen somewhere else because Walking the walk of environmental responsibility A BY JUDY VAN RHIJN For Law Times s increasing numbers of individuals are walking the walk of environmen- of the firm's activities. This covers emissions at the power plant in proportion to the electricity used, or the emissions of a district heat- ing system that supplies steam to the building. Scope 3 covers ev- erything else. "Business travel is a really big component of that," says Fancott, referring to vehicles owned by the business, taxi travel, or commuting by employees. "If you start getting on planes it goes through the roof." Other examples of Scope 3 sources are the firm's waste (which goes to landfill and degrades into methane) and paper use. "There's a lifecycle of carbon energy that goes into the production of that," Fancott explains. Document stor- age and delivery is another source that is unique to the legal profes- sion. "There are trucks picking up boxes to transport them to off-site storage that may or may not be climate controlled." When a firm is deciding how far to push out the Scope 3 com- ponents Fancott says it should remember that while Scope 1 and Scope 2 can be calculated from utility bills, it is difficult to get data for Scope 3. "For instance, people generally aren't monitoring their business travel in terms of distance." This sort of information can only be gained by conducting surveys of the employees, for which purpose Pinchin likes to have a limited number of entry points into the business. "There will be a lead person — the operation man- ager who co-ordinates the distri- bution of the questionnaires — and then we have contact with someone in each office to clarify questions and answers." In the case of Stikemans, which undertook a very thor- ough inventory, the whole pro- cess took three or four months. "It was a very extensive analysis of the habits of the firm," says Ray- mond. "Very educational." The study found that Stikemans' of- fices across Canada produce just over 5,000 tons of greenhouse gases per year. This has prompted them to try to reduce their carbon emissions significantly. "Whatev- er we can't reduce, we buy some carbon credits to offset," explains Raymond. "The money paid for offset credits is invested in iden- tified projects certified under the Kyoto arrangement." At present the credits are funding a wind program in India, a hydroelectric program in China, and a methane-re- capturing project in the U.S. The cost of this gesture was over $100,000. "From a prac- tical point of view, we do not want to just pull out the cash because we have to do it every year," says Raymond. "We are engaging to reduce the emis- sions by a significant amount." The firm plans to have its foot- print recalculated every two or three years to see how much of a reduction they have achieved. "That's our objective and we'll be motivated by our success or lack of success." So far the firm has chosen to kick some environmental butt with a variety of small but effec- tive measures. "We have no more plastic bottles," says Raymond, "and no more plastic cutlery or paper cups. We print both sides of the paper now. We are saving four million sheets a year and that's only in Toronto. It would be more than double that for the whole firm. We have sensors in every of- fice, so that when we leave, the lights go off. We are also speak- ing to all our landlords because we create a lot of CO2 by heating and air conditioning." The cost savings associated with these measures appears to more than offset the cost of the exercise. Fancott's ballpark esti- mate of fees is $5,000 per office. "With economies of scale, we can get that down to $2,000. It depends on the number of scopes. Follow-up assessments can be even cheaper the next time around as the surveys and calculation spreadsheets are already set up." He believes that follow-ups are very impor- tant. "First you need to know where it comes from. Then you need to find ways to reduce it to make the whole exercise worthwhile." LT • Structured settlement consultants • Corporate guarantee • Brochure and printouts • Legal department • Largest brokerage department • Largest client services department • Offices coast to coast • Four times larger than our largest competitor • Experts in accident benefits and future care valuations • Consultants available 24-7 on request • Largest number of CSSCs in Canada • Canada's oldest structured settlement company Substance unseen. The McKellar Structured Settlement™ www.mckellar.com VANCOUVER 1-800-465-7878 McKellar_LT_May25_09.indd 1 EDMONTON McKELLAR STRUCTURED SETTLEMENTS INC. GUELPH 780-420-0897 1-800-265-8381 www.lawtimesnews.com HALIFAX 1-800-565-0695 USA 1-800-265-2789 5/14/09 10:08:07 AM

• Cover
• Students In Good Shape
• The Dirty 30s
• Focus On Running Your Practice