S&C is committed to sustainability—it’s part of our commitment to our communities, our clients and our business. We believe it is our shared responsibility to protect our natural environment and create a more sustainable future. Every member of the Firm plays a vital role in our efforts to reduce and mitigate the environmental impacts of our activities.
In line with this, the Environmental Task Force was established to identify and implement a variety of green initiatives. Partners, associates and professional staff come together to focus our efforts on reducing carbon emissions, consuming less energy and other natural resources, and promoting the health of our people and the communities in which we live and work.
While we know there’s more to take on, we have already started to see the impact of our initiatives. Through communal and individual recycling efforts, we reduced our new paper usage by 25 percent from 2018 to 2019. In the last year, the General Practice Group transitioned to online only research documents and eliminated hard copy paper handouts in Firm presentations; we utilized double-sided printing when hard copies are required; and we reduced our consumption of disposable plastic water bottles by nearly 2,000 units.
Other initiatives are more long-standing. For more than 10 years, S&C has committed to green cleaning products that meet the Green Seal GS-37 standard. And our reliance on motion light sensors has reduced our electricity consumption.
Our commitment has earned certifications that recognize energy conservation and other efforts to create healthy, efficient and cost-saving green buildings. S&C’s New York headquarters is LEED Gold Certified, Energy Star Certified, WiredScore Platinum certified for connectivity, and Fitwel certified.
S&C’s Environmental Principles promote:
- Mitigation of climate change, through reduction of our direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions,
- Resource conservation, through reduction of our energy consumption,
- Forest and natural resource conservation, through reduction, reuse and recycling of paper and other commercial products, and
- The health of our people and the public, through office design, construction and operational practices that reduce air emissions, water consumption and exposure to hazardous substances.