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Dubai - DLA Piper’s Dubai office re-affirmed its commitment to environmentally-friendly practices by holding a “Green Week” as part of an office-wide Global Sustainability Initiative to reduce waste and encourage recycling.  Green Week, conducted from May 4 – 8, 2008, encouraged all employees at DLA Piper to minimise their environmental impacts during its “Reduce, Re-use, Recycle” campaign.
 
During “Green Week” all staff in the Dubai office were encouraged to minimise the use of vehicles either by car pooling or walking to work.  They were also asked to use the seven flights of stairs at the office instead of lifts and to bring a lunch from home to reduce excessive packaging waste when ordering in.  By the end of the week, the number of car trips being made to and from the office were reduced from 512 on average to 448 trips during the Green Week.  Elevator usage was reduced by 10% thanks to the 45 trips made up the seven flights of stairs to the DLA Piper office.
 
In an effort to reduce paper usage, all office printers were set to duplex printing to ensure the use of both sides of each sheet, an initiative set to become permanent wherever possible.  The team at DLA Piper Middle East also made a conscious effort to boost the recycling program by removing all trash bins from work stations and centralising paper collection for recycling.  This year alone the Dubai office has recycled over 3200kg (80%) of its paper, more than 100 toner cartridges, 1100 plastic drinks bottles, 1080 glass bottles, nearly 1700 aluminum cans and saved in excess of 200,000 sheets of paper by double sided photocopying.
 
The week culminated on Thursday, May 8 with a casual dress day wearing either green clothes and/or environmentally friendly materials as part of a fundraiser to support DLA Piper’s pledge to the Greenbelt MovementCs “Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign.” More than 25 staff members ate a chemical-free organic lunch in a symbolic show of support for agricultural practices that minimise pollution and promote biodiversity in the surrounding environment. This was followed by a presentation on food security and sustainability by Dave Friend, an expert from the Organic Foods and Café.
 
Of the offices efforts David Church, Regional Manager Partner for DLA Piper commented “I am extremely proud of our team for making this Green Week a success and for their ongoing environmental activities that help minimise our environmental impact in the Middle East.  Minimising our impact on the environment requires a conscious effort to integrate economically-sound practices in our day-to-day operating activities, and I hope that this exercise can create awareness about the importance of being environmentally accountable.”
 
DLA Piper’s “Green Week” is part of its overall commitment to reduce and manage the impact of its operations on the environment. The Global Sustainability Initiative, DLA PiperCs business-wide plan to reduce its impact in the areas of energy, waste, business travel and procurement, was launched in January 2007.
 
WafaC Tarnowska, who is in charge of DLA Piper Middle East’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, said: “DLA Piper’s commitment to the environment is unique because it goes beyond rhetoric and focuses on delivering quantifiable and palpable results to meet objectives.  These simple techniques adopted over Green Week have helped introduce our staff to simple actions that are easy to implement, and that really can make a difference.”
 

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