Environmental

WFW is fully committed to reducing the impact of all our activities on the natural environment. The firm joined the Legal Sector Alliance (LSA) in 2008, an initiative for UK law firms to promote awareness of climate change and to recognise the impact of our activities on the environment. The LSA comprises an alliance of law firms, in-house counsel and chambers who are committed to working together to encourage the legal profession to commit to environmental sustainability. Membership of the LSA has synergy with efforts WFW has undertaken to date to reduce our carbon footprint and adopting sustainable practices.

As legal service market leaders is the Renewables sector, we are involved in many onshore and offshore wind farm projects, as well as waste to energy, hydropower and solar power projects. Our power practice comprises 21 partners and 35 assistant solicitors working from the firm’s offices in London, New York, Paris, Hamburg, Rome, Athens, Piraeus, Singapore and Bangkok. As at 1 January 2008 our lawyers had worked on 250 Renewables transactions in 50 countries. This deep knowledge has helped add real value to financiers and developers in the sector.

The London office was refurbished in 2008 using wood from sustainable sources. Motion detection lighting was also introduced to help improve energy efficiency on three of our floors.

In 2007, the firm switched its London car/taxi service to a Green Tariff, which uses Toyota Prius hybrid and BlueMotion cars. This has reduced our motor vehicle carbon footprint by approximately 33%.

Employees are also encouraged to make a difference through the Cycle 2 Work scheme, a tax efficient way of purchasing bicycles used for commuting. Business mileage rates are also offered when bicycles are used for business purposes.

The Singapore office has been recycling with The Singapore Recycling Centre since 2005. In 2008, the Singapore office recycled a total of 2,420kg of paper.

Report for WFW's Singapore office 2008
	Jul-Sep '08	Oct-Dec '08	Jan-Mar '09
Paper	530kg	350kg	480kg

WFW's London recycling initiative was created in conjunction with Paper Round www.paper-round.co.uk . Paper Round was started by Friends of the Earth, and each year it supports various environmental charities including Trees for Cities, an independent charity that works with local communities on tree planting projects.

Recycling points around the London office has resulted in savings in 2008 of approximately 865 trees, 75,220 kWh of energy and 104,350 kg of CO2.

Report for WFW's London office 2008/2009
	Jul-Sep '08	Oct-Dec '08	Jan-Mar '09
Paper	17,792kg	16,615kg	10,139kg
Glass	495kg	700kg	70kg
Cans & Plastic	218kg	306kg	326kg