Going green - the social, legal, financial impacts

Lights that turn themselves off, computers that go to sleep if their users walk away, a law office that uses less than half the paper it previously did.

The future for firms trying to save a little piece of the planet is now.

Clearly, though, not every firm has jumped onto the bandwagon, but a "greening" trend is starting to appear in the light sockets and recycling bins of New Jersey's law offices.

And with climate change becoming a recognized social - and legal - issue, some firms are learning a new paradigm their clients soon may be forced to follow.

The latest aim is to reduce the carbon footprint - the current buzz term for describing the premise that every time we use electricity, drive, eat or use practically any mass-produced product, as well as the manufacture and transportation of those products, it generates carbon dioxide gases that disrupt the earth's natural climate cycles.

A handful of law firms with headquarters or offices in New Jersey show the kinds of steps any business can take to help minimize environmental damage.

While the programs can range from initial baby steps about recycling to comprehensive policies that involve automatic light switches and computerized thermostats, the three general areas seem to be in using available technology to reduce electricity use, in minimizing paper and in instructing employees how to apply some of these lessons at home.

For instance, Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland & Perretti in Morristown sends employees a "tip of the week" they can use both at the office and at home.

It's one of the firms that made 2008 the year it would get serious about its green campaign and is saving hundreds of reams of paper by electronic distribution of forms and announcements.

The firm also switched to two-sided printing as the printer default setting, "which will save us at least 1 million pieces of paper a year," said Julian W. Wells, chairman of Riker Danzig's Green Committee.

"Our green initiatives have been met with a great deal of enthusiasm among our attorneys and staff, and we are excited about moving forward with additional initiatives," he said, adding it helps when people believe they can really accomplish something.

"It is well within our reach to make a significant impact," he said.

It's no secret a law office generates tons of paper, and the American Bar Association estimates the average lawyer uses about 20,000 sheets a year; using 100,000 isn't rare, with most of it landing in the recycling can.

While recycling is considered an environmentally worthy behavior, producing the paper in the first place - from cutting trees for pulp, delivering them to the mill, milling them, making paper from the pulp, cutting and bundling the paper to size, packaging, boxing, transporting it and so on - involves not only eliminating trees' natural function of manufacturing oxygen, but also involves countless machines that burn fuel. It's that carbon footprint again.

Dollars and cents

In the past, calls for energy saving often were met with much shoulder-shrugging. Companies would say they wanted to save energy but felt they just couldn't afford the up-front costs.

But Thomas H. Prol of Scarinci & Hollenbeck in Lyndhurst said the time has finally come when lawyers can marshal the expertise to persuade their firms - and their clients - to do the right thing.

No matter how passionate an individual is about saving the planet, he said, "the best way to sell it is on the economics."

The Scarinci firm is taking the two-directional approach: advising clients on their building plans and reviewing its own paper and energy use.

One of the first things to go, Prol reported, was the bound version of the New Jersey Lawyers Diary. The firm now subscribes to the disk version installed on hard drives.

In addition to saving energy, Scarinci & Hollenbeck is looking into the possibility of installing solar panels, perhaps on the roof, a rear yard or both.

ABA challenge

The American Bar Association has become a cheerleader for the greening movement, laying down an "ABA-EPA law office climate challenge" that includes improved paper management, using alternative energy sources and supporting the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star program for more-efficient appliances.

Of the 40 firms nationwide rated as partners in the program, so far only one New Jersey-based firm, Lowenstein Sandler in Roseland, has formally enrolled and qualified.

"My expectation is that number is going to grow," said Daniel A. Eisenberg of Beveridge & Diamond in Washington, D.C., spokesman for the ABA's Section of Environment, Energy and Resources, and indeed, New Jersey firms are lining up.

Lowenstein has become a "green power partner" by pledging to buy at least 6 percent of its electricity from a wind-power farm in Atlantic City. In actuality, the firm has been purchasing 15 percent.

It also has commissioned a full-blown "carbon footprint analysis" to determine how it is using energy and how it can reduce emissions.

"Energy use and climate change are cutting-edge issues for our clients and our society," said Lowenstein's James Stewart.

While state and federal governments have yet to crack down on energy use, there are signs, such as New Jersey's Global Response Act, that such regulation is coming, Stewart said.

That legislation sets 2050 as the target year for reducing emissions 80 percent of current levels and 2020 to at least return them to 1990 levels.

Gibbons: All the way

Of the dozens or so firms contacted by New Jersey Lawyer, Gibbons in Newark has the most-ambitious program.

In part this is because the firm had considerable clout when it was planning to move into a new building as the lead tenant.

The firm's new office has such energy-saving features as film on windows, more glass-front offices to allow more natural light, and devices in offices, hallways, restrooms and conference rooms that sense when no one's there and turn the lights off.

Thermostats are arranged to take into account the fact that one side of the building is in the sun and the other in the shade, mitigating the thermostat-control battles familiar to almost anyone in a conventional office.

"The landlord was very, very receptive to our suggestions," said Gibbons' executive director, June Inderwies. "Builders know this is the future."

Gibbons also is enlisting its suppliers. When the firm orders cell phones and personal digital assistants in bulk, it doesn't want the ubiquitous packing foam.

The firm also met with its suppliers in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania "to ensure that they have environmentally friendly policies and practices," Inderwies said.

To help generate employee enthusiasm, the firm celebrated its "Gibbons Goes Green" kickoff on St. Patrick's Day, and there will be regular videoconferences on how the firm's 425 employees in five offices can be better "green citizens," with a change in emphasis every couple of months.

Just as Gibbons is working on environmental issues through its offices in other states, out-of-state firms with branch offices in New Jersey also are implementing firm-wide changes.

Philadelphia-based Stradley Ronon, for instance, with offices in Cherry Hill and Trenton, has a Running Green Committee, started when associate Gina M. Stowe planted the idea with management.

It turned out to be an easy sell, with much support from the firm and considerable enthusiasm by employees.

"For me, it was frankly about the paper," said Stowe, a litigator who admits to using too much of it in the past.

Stowe said Stradley wants to get on the ABA's challenge list too, looking first at the "best paper practices" category as well as an alternative-energy subsidy similar to Lowenstein's.

"We're just feeling our way through it right now," she said. "We do want to bring Stradley into a new environmentally friendly sphere."

So, is this all a trend or just a fad?

Gibbons' Inderwies is betting on the former:

"In a few years this won't be an initiative; it will be the way of thinking."