For the team at William Roberts, a boutique commercial litigation firm with offices in Melbourne and Sydney, going green was a no-brainer.

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For the team at William Roberts, a boutique commercial litigation firm with offices in Melbourne and Sydney, going green was a no-brainer.

For the team at William Roberts, a boutique commercial litigation firm, going green was a no-brainer.

"The scientific evidence that climate change is devastating the planet is compelling," says director Robert Ishak. "[We] are conscious of the effects of climate change and so it was not difficult for each member of the firm to take ownership of the task of neutralising our carbon footprint."

What have they achieved?

The first thing the firm did was commission an emissions report from the Carbon Reduction Institute. Since then, the firm has become "Low CO2 certified" and then "No CO2 certified", with quarterly reports to the Institute to monitor impact and ways in which that can be offset. Some measures which achieve this include:

- corresponding electronically with at least 90 per cent of clients, thus having no need for paper-based files;

- purchasing carbon offsets for domestic and international travel;

- liaising with carbon neutral suppliers and ensuring they have minimum green requirements before engagement;

- including costs of monitoring emissions in the office expenses.

The experience so far

"Interestingly enough, [the initiative] wasn't driven by management, it was driven by staff … from the bottom up," says Ishak. "We didn't need persuading."