You’ll see more green around our office than you’re used to these days, but it’s not because we’re celebrating a late St. Patrick’s Day. It’s because we at Lardiere McNair are have joined the Law Firm Sustainability Network in an effort to reduce our impact on the environment.

You’ll see a few changes around the Lardiere McNair office in the coming weeks and months. We are going to be revamping some of our office practices to become reduce our impact on the environment and conduct business in a more sustainable, environmentally friendly way. This sustainability initiative is a reflection of our commitment to providing exceptional legal services. We consider our impact on the world around us to be a part of that commitment, and this fall and winter we will be improving the quality of the service we provide by reducing our impact on the environment.

We were already using some sustainable practices in our offices. You may have noticed that we use actual dishes whenever we can, both at lunch and when bringing water or coffee to our desks, and that we rarely use disposable items when we can re-use. We were already printing two-sided when we can and not printing if we don’t have to, and re-using things like file folders, binders, boxes, and other items that often get discarded long before they have outlived their use.

On top of this, we have started some new habits that will help us on our road to sustainability. We now use materials in our coffee machine that are both recycled and recyclable, in a program that even sends our used grounds to compost, rather than a landfill. We are now using 100% recycled paper products, including our file folders, paper towels and other paper items. We just installed an energy star rated dishwasher in our office, and we are replacing our old light bulbs with new LED bulbs where we can to ensure that our power usage is responsible.

We know that we have a long road to travel to be as good as we can at running an efficient, low-waste, sustainable office, but we are committed to traveling that road and keeping all of our clients and partners apprised of our progress. We will be providing periodic updates about our sustainability initiative, and letting our blog readers know what we are doing to minimize our impact on the environment. In the meantime, we hope you’ll help us. If you stop by our office and see something we could improve, let us know. If you start down the road to sustainability, drop us a line and we can encourage each other. And if you want to see Darren in a leprechaun costume, you’ll probably have to wait until March.