Reed Smith launched its Global Environmental Sustainability Plan 2024 last May 18, 2022.
With measurable and transparent targets, the plan underpins the firm’s continuing commitment to evolving its operations and behaviours to drive lasting environmental sustainability within the firm, its communities and the legal industry.
The plan has an initial two-year focus; the firm will announce a revised set of targets and timelines, as the initial milestones are achieved. Through this sustained global effort, the firm will build on previous environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts to reduce its carbon footprint and operate in a more sustainable fashion.
The plan is focused on reducing the firm’s carbon footprint by 20% by 2024, make all products used across the firm’s global operations recyclable or reusable by 2024, and the firm will appoint two sustainability partners and two sustainability champions to drive the progress of the firm’s sustainability goals as well as establish a ‘Green Team’ with representation from all its offices to ensure it achieves its sustainability goals throughout the firm.
“We have a responsibility to act sustainably in support of our communities around the world. The firm’s sustainability plan reflects the shared commitment of our people to this endeavor. Our plan takes a holistic approach and establishes specific and measurable targets that will lead to impactful and tangible results. Our initial targets are an important first step on our journey to achieve sustainability,” said Nick Bagiatis, Reed Smith’s Chief Operating Officer.
To recognise and reward the pursuit of sustainability, Reed Smith enhanced its billable-hours policy to include work on sustainability projects. Effective June 1, the 25 hours of sustainability-related leadership, advocacy, training and development will count towards the firm’s existing 140 hours of billable credit each year for non-billable work.
This enhancement of the billable-hours policy builds on the firm’s commitment to provide its lawyers and other timekeepers with wide-ranging development opportunities. Timekeepers may devote up to 140 hours of non-billable work toward billable credit each calendar year. These nonbillable hours can be used for pro bono legal service, innovation projects (up to 50 hours) and diversity-related projects (up to 50 hours). In addition, associates can perform up to 50 hours of “development in action” that provide substantive on-the-job training that is not billed to a client.
“The expansion of the billable-hours policy to include sustainability projects is another enhancement of our Associate Life initiative, which enables our attorneys to work on issues of critical importance while building leadership skills and expanding their skill sets. These experiences will further support their legal and professional development and yield key advances in support of sustainability,” said Casey Ryan, the firm’s global head of personnel.
