Go Green with Scott Richards
At Scott Richards, we are passionate about the sustainability of our local environment, businesses and community. Our team is committed to providing comprehensive legal services in a straightforward and reliable way, whilst maintaining our social and environmental responsibilities. For a first-class service, delivered in a sustainable way, go green with SR Solicitors.
Our Go Green Team
At Scott Richards Solicitors, our mission statement is displayed proudly on the main page of our website, and reads:
“We are passionate about the sustainability of our local environment, businesses, and community. Our team is committed to providing comprehensive legal services in a straightforward and reliable way, whilst maintaining our social and environmental responsibilities. For a first-class service, delivered in a sustainable way, go green with SR Solicitors.”
Whilst the mission statement says passionate, it could easily be with replaced with the word obsessed! With most of our staff working and living in the seaside town of Teignmouth, we are surrounded by all the natural beauty that the Southwest has to offer and are fiercely protective over our stunning local community. As one of the largest independent employers in our local area, we must set the example, leading the way for sustainability, and actively sprinting towards the Race to Net Zero target we have committed to by 2050. We have a goal – for our loud green branding to be as synonymous with our eco-friendly stance, as it is with Scott Richards as a firm.
In 2019, we made our commitment official by signing up to the Future Net Zero scheme, with administrative support from an independent company, Balanced Energy, who each year produce our annual carbon footprint report. Having a tangible way to measure and illustrate our commitment really keeps us on track and encourages our staff to make changes that result in the reduction of our footprint.
As a firm of almost 60 staff, across two offices, we needed to find a way to encourage our team to take ownership of the firm’s goal, and really embed sustainability into our business culture. With our passionate, local staff, this really wasn’t hard to do! We setup our internal Go Green Team; a group of 6 staff who have 6 months to brainstorm and implement innovative ways that the firm can reduce our emissions. After 6 months, a new tranche of staff is chosen, ensuring the ideas stay fresh, green, and keep coming!
Our Go Green Team Successes!
Leap Software
We are a paper-lite firm! We made the switch to a cloud-based client system, with the vast majority of our files now in 100% electronic format. As a direct result, our paper consumption figures have plummeted.
Electric Company Cars
Scott Richards runs two 100% electric vehicles which are used by staff for all client visits, networking and training events. This green way of travel has seen a huge improvement in our business mileage impact.
Banned Single-Use Bottles
Our Managing Partner banned single-use plastic bottles across both our offices, and instead, purchased SodaStreams for staff to enjoy their carbonated drinks. We also puchased a reusable water bottle for every staff member, to be used with our plumbed-in water filters in the office - so there really is no need for single-use plastic bottles at SR!
100% Renewable Energy Suppliers
We moved our energy suppliers for both offices to companies who are 100% renewable only. Though more expensive than standard energy companies, we think the trade off for 100% sustainability is worth the extra cost. We also managed to negotiate a discount for all SR staff members wanting to join Good Energy for their household supply.
Eco-Friendly Pens
As a firm, we moved away from plastic pens, initially switching to wood, before settling on cardboard pens.
Seeded Business Cards
Many of our clients still prefer to take written details of their next appointment away with them, and so our Green Team set about finding an eco-friendly alternative to cardboard appointment/business cards. We were thrilled to introduce seeded cards, which can be planted once finished with - see what grows!
Milk
Like any office, we love a cup of tea; and that means we get through a lot of milk! We introduced oat milk as a sustainable alternative to cow’s milk, which a good 50% of the staff managed to take to. But, for those who just couldn’t bear the switch, we stopped buying plastic-bottled milk and signed up to our local butcher’s milk service. We purchased reusable glass bottles, and twice a week head over to the butchers to top up our bottles.
Search Engine
We enforced Ecosia as our firm-wide search engine, over Google. The search ads on Ecosia fund the planting of new trees and each staff member can see how many their machine has supported with the tree counter in the corner.
Empty Medicine Packets
Whilst our waste company is eco-friendly, the Green Team identified that certain items were better recycled elsewhere and so, we have drop off points at both offices for medicine packets and crisp wrappers.
Sundries & Stationery
Our Green Team looked at all areas of our procurement and have managed to make some impressive, but easy switches for firm: Foam hand soap which lasts longer and therefore uses less plastic, biodegradable tea bags, eco-sponges, recycled paper, toilet roll that comes in paper not plastic etc. We’ve even managed to source eco-friendly fire extinguishers!
Plastic Bin Bags
With so many desks, comes so many under-desk bins. To reduce our plastic usage, our Green Team confiscated 80% of the office bins, replacing them with just a handful of communal bins. This made a huge impact on our plastic consumption, as all the bins used to be emptied twice a week, whether they were full or not!
T.R.A.I.L.
SR supports Trail Recycled Art in the Landscape; an annual display of art exhibitions in Teignmouth, made entirely of recycled materials and designed to raise awareness about how much we throw away. We love this dodo, which was created using old building site waste.
Race to Zero Pledge
Declaration of Participation – Community Member Company
Our company recognises the importance of making a full and lasting commitment to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from our activities, in support of the wider commitment of the world to limit global temperature increases and the impact on the planet.
As a signatory member of the FNZ CBN Expert SME Community we commit to the following:
1. For our company to achieve Net Zero in line with the Science Based targets set out by the UNFCCC i.e. to achieve Net Zero no later than 2050 and target a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030.
2. To set realistic short and long term targets that are designed to achieve our Net Zero commitments.
3. To report the total Greenhouse Gas emissions of our business regularly and for our performance to be part of the Community’s annual reporting back to the UNFCCC.
We acknowledge that our commitment will be reported on the FNZ CBN Expert SME Community website.
Scott Richards made its pledge to the Race to Zero via the FNZ CBN Expert Community on 25th June 2021. The record of the pledge can be found at www.futurenetzero.com.
Jamie Dyson, Managing Partner of Scott Richards Solicitors, spoke to future Net Zero about how our business has teamed up with Balanced Energy to undergo a green transformation:
