Carbon Footprint

We are members of The Law Society Legal Sector Alliance.

Climate change is a very real and serious threat to society, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.

At Lovell Chohan, we recognise this and have engaged the process of managing direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases, in order to minimise the contribution to climate change in the course of our business. We recognise that there should be a legacy left to future generations.

Lovell Chohan Solicitors have worked to establish its own operational carbon footprint. This includes energy consumption of storage facilities, offices, travel and employee commuting. An ambitious commitment has been made to achieve a significant reduction in the ‘carbon footprint’ of Lovell Chohan Solicitors business activities by 2012.

The carbon footprint of a product will typically include the carbon emissions related to raw materials, energy use, direct manufacturing emissions and transportation.

A product carbon footprint will have a given scope or boundary to the assessment, for example from raw materials through to delivery to the merchant. However, sometimes this will also form part of a broader Life Cycle Assessment, which includes further transportation, product use and disposal.

Establishing accurate and reliable product carbon footprints is a challenge but Lovell Chohan continue to engage with suppliers to identify and limit emissions attributable to products and to offer low carbon product options.

As a responsible Firm we will strive to comply with all environmental, legal and other requirements that apply to our activities and services. We will ensure the availability of the necessary resources to implement, maintain and develop environmental management in order to deliver continuous improvement in our environmental performance.

To ensure this we will:

• Manage our services and activities to comply with applicable environmental laws, regulations, licences and other commitments to which we may subscribe.
• Require suppliers to demonstrate their respect for the environment by following responsible working practices.
• Identify, reduce and dispose of waste arising from our business in a manner that minimises harm to the environment and prevents pollution of land, air and water.
• We will implement a more realistic approach to waste reduction and increased recycling.
• Reduce the consumption of fuel, energy and water and use renewable and/or recyclable resources wherever practicable
• Apply environmental impacts principles when making new investments or disposing of old office equipment.
• Provide information, instruction and training for employees on relevant environmental issues.

The successful implementation of this policy depends on the commitment and involvement of our employees, suppliers and associates. Their suggestions and participation is encouraged and will contribute to the success of this policy and the environment.

The foremost area of concern was the usage of private vehicles by our staff for travel purposes and the associated emissions being created by such use. To combat this element the Firm provided two new Toyota IQ cars, where the emissions figures were considerably lower (99 g/km), this on average halved our emission output. All staff currently use the Firms pool cars for the purposes of business travel. The added bonus to the Frim in return was nil excise duty and lower insurance premiums due to the class of vehicle.

Further areas of concern were the consumption of electricity which prompted us to audit our process of where the usage was at its highest. To implement a reduction in our kilowatts used the Firm overhauled all of its 24 computer systems and main frame server to more efficient ‘Energy Star’ compliant ones.

At present Lovell Chohan Solicitors have taken the following steps to comply with our commitments to reducing our carbon foot print and will continue to implement, monitor and change our strategies accordingly.

• Fitting of Cat2 lighting
• Changing bulbs to either florescent or LED
• Purchasing recycled toner cartridges
• Ditching our crisp bright white headed paper for recycled paper
• Installed paper and card recycling bins in various locations throughout our offices and changed our refuge collection from the Local Authority to a private service where we were provided with commercial segregation bins
• Introduced video and audio conferencing, thus reducing unnecessary travel
• Encouraged suppliers and chambers to send paper work and bills to us electronically
• Expanded our current use of email to send correspondence to clients, courts and chambers
• Implemented a scan to PDF and FTP server system where large volumes of documents could be sent or downloaded electronically.
• Eliminated the use of kettles and the reheating of them with a Lincat hot water system
• Disposed of bottled drinking water in favour of a mains plumbed system
• Replaced our central heating boilers with new optimised energy ones
• Shut down one of two air-conditioning fan coil units during summer months
• Acquired second-hand legal text books opposed to new ones
• Installed 150w metal halide building illumination in place of 500w halogen bulbs
• Encouraged our suppliers to provide us with office products with the least packaging
• Eliminated drafts by installing new door seals
• Refurnished our offices with furniture from local suppliers and tradesmen
• Changed office cleaning products to ones that are environmentally friendly and eliminated the use of aerosols where possible