THE ABA EPA LAW OFFICE CLIMATE CHALLENGE

Horack Talley is participating in the Law Office Climate Challenge, a multifaceted program from the American Bar Association in collaboration with the US Environmental Protection Agency. The firm has instituted “Best Paper Practices” delineated by the ABA, and is participating in WasteWise, EnergyStar, and Green Power—three EPA programs. The Challenge only requires participation in one of these programs; Horack Talley is participating in all four of them at the leadership level.

To kick off the Law Office Challenge, Horack Talley created a baseline of energy and paper usage, recycling and other energy-related metrics in September of 2007. Since then, the firm has implemented battery recycling, bottle and can recycling, has expanded paper recycling significantly, now purchases paper with 30% recycled content, has set copiers to default to two-sided copying, replaced incandescent bulbs with energy-saving fluorescents, and has raised the temperature in the computer server room to save air conditioning energy. Public transportation lunch and learn sessions and a monthly prize drawing now encourages use of public transit by employees, which has increased from 10% to 30% of staff positions.

Horack Talley purchased low-carbon renewable energy credits from Renewable Choice Energy in the amount of 101% of total energy usage per year. The estimated environmental benefit is equivalent to the carbon-offsets that would be achieved by planting 2229 trees or by not driving over 590,000 miles.