Sustainability
THE WORLD IS PRECIOUS, VULNERABLE AND WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT IT. THAT’S NOT OUR OPINION, THAT’S A FACT.
It’s why we’ve become members of the Sustainable Recruitment Alliance. The Alliance encourages all those involved in the graduate recruitment industry to take a more environmentally friendly approach to attracting new talent. They make us accountable – and that’s a good thing.
As members of the Alliance we’ve pledged to review, reduce and report on our graduate recruitment processes and find greener, more sustainable alternatives.
Being honest, up until 2014 what we were doing just wasn’t as sustainable as it should’ve been. We’d do silly things like print all our application forms to review them and produce high gloss brochures which sat in fancy plastic coverings. It’s funny isn’t it how in hindsight you realise how daft something was.
One of our first steps we took was to introduce the Apply4Law system in Summer 2014, which immediately stopped all those 600 applications being printed for review each year.
In early 2015 we launched our graduate recruitment website giving us the opportunity to make some big changes. Our website was packed full of information, videos, interactive timelines and our people profiles. We no longer needed to produce the 20 page brochures we would normally print, instead we gave candidates our website address and ta-da all the information was there but online.
The law fair season in 2015 saw us handing out fact cards rather than a brochure and each year we closely monitor our order numbers. If we have surplus, our order for the next year reflects that. This goes hand in hand with the merchandise we hand out. Our focus for the last 3 years has been on reusable products which has seen us handing out water bottles, collapsible cups and reusable straws.
How we travel to the law fairs has changed too. The old days (well, not that long ago) would see us driving to various universities, sometimes in 3 separate cars. We now only travel by public transport. You reflect on these changes and think how much common sense they are. But you just can be guilty of doing what you’ve always done, can’t you.
The firm as a whole in the last 12 months has:
- achieved 25% reduction in paper
- achieved 95% reduction in plastic water bottles
- saved 28,000 plastic cups and 24,000 plastic lids
- switched to 100% biodegradable pens
It’s a start. A step in the right direction. But it is definitely a journey we’re fully committed to taking.