2021 Progress Report: Sustainable Operations

We add up the annual electricity use of individual offices to calculate the firm's total electricity consumption. For offices that are not individually metered, we estimate use by dividing the whole building's consumption by the proportion of the building we occupy. Electricity use rose with an increase in employees and locations over the years but has decreased since 2016 as a result of greater energy efficiency in our operations. Decreased office electricity use in 2020 and 2021 also reflects an increase in remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our total carbon footprint captures the carbon emissions of our offices in five areas under Scopes 1 and 3: electricity consumption, heating and cooling, business travel by plane, employee commuting and office waste. This figure shows our carbon footprint before offsetting emissions (bars above), and our carbon footprint with offsets and renewable energy certificates (bars below). Carbon offsets and RECs have a significant impact on lowering our carbon footprint. In 2020 and 2021, our carbon footprint (before offsetting emissions) fell by as much as 32 percent – which in part can be attributed to the remote work and reduced business travel necessitated by the pandemic.

This is the percentage of office products with “eco features” that we purchase from Staples, from which we purchase about 60 percent of our office supplies. Staples defines “eco features” as recycled content or compliance with environmental certification standards like Green Seal or the Forest Stewardship Council. This figure does not include an assessment of supplies purchased through other suppliers. The decline in green purchasing in 2020 and 2021 may be due to increasing our use of other suppliers and a resulting reduction in the variety and number of items we purchased through Staples.