Our renewable energy team here at Stoel Rives has been a big fan of purchasing green power for years–we were one of the first US law firms to purchase green tags to offset a portion of the firm’s electricity use.

In 2008, we kicked off an even more ambitious firmwide GO GREEN campaign that goes beyond buying green power. In many of our offices, we have removed garbage cans from individual offices and now walk our garbage to a central location on each floor where the waste can be recyled, composted or, as a last resort, thrown away.  (Needless to say, the sudden disapperance of office garbage cans stimulated a lot of discussion, but it certainly taught us how many things could actually be composted or recycled if we tried hard enough.).  We’ve logged enough alternative commuting miles in the past 6 weeks to drive round trip from Portland, Oregon to Miami, Florida over 15 times.  We also learned that we we can save over $70,000 a year in costs by just changing the firm’s printers to a default duplex mode.  We’re now one of only seven law firms in the United States  to qualify as a leader in the EPA/ABA Climate Challenge.

To learn more about the things we’re doing here at Stoel Rives to reduce our impact on the earth and support renewable energy, check out our Go Green Press release

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