Stikeman Elliott selected as one of the Green 30 businesses in Canada

For the fourth consecutive year, Stikeman Elliott has been selected as one of Canada’s Green 30 businesses by Maclean’s magazine, the only law firm on the list. The Green 30 is comprised of the Canadian businesses most committed to environmental sustainability and whose employees at all levels believe they have incorporated environmental stewardship into their business model and corporate culture.

Stikeman Elliott was the first and remains the only national Canadian law firm to be carbon neutral, reducing its carbon footprint by 13% since 2008.

Firm member responses to the 50 Best Employers in Canada annual survey measuring firm member engagement across numerous factors, including Corporate Social Responsibility, reveals that in 2013, 94% of firm members believe Stikeman Elliott is a socially and environmentally responsible organization, taking an active role in minimizing the impact of its operations on the environment. This compares to the average of 88% of the other Best Employers in 2013.

Many of the initiatives implemented by Stikeman Elliott to reduce waste have come from ideas suggested by employees, one of the criteria weighed in the selection of the award. In keeping with our sustainability program, the following initiatives were undertaken in 2012:

• Submission of data for the firm’s third Carbon Footprint including:
  • A 9.1% reduction in our footprint and a 31% reduction in Toronto’s sub metered electricity, due in large part to efforts undertaken with a lighting retrofit
• Participation in a waste management task force:
  • Successful re-launch of waste program by aligning recycling to more closely match residential programs. New recycling equipment and smaller waste containers with enhanced visual bin signage were distributed to 630 offices/workstations/serveries
  • Successful in working with our landlord to incorporate paper towels used in kitchens (previously placed in waste stream destined for landfill) into the organics stream, the firm carried out further changes to recycling signage in serveries
• Successful implementation of reusable delivery boxes for delivery of office products, in conjunction with the firm’s office products supplier, thereby reducing waste in the procurement process