Bill and I were in London last week connecting with clients and getting face time in with our London team, and I was struck by how the conversations we were having had changed over the last three years.
Directly after the pandemic, we were working with our London clients to support their abrupt shift to remote work. The focus was replicating the efficiency and productivity of the office to any remote location.
Fast forward to today, and the accelerated adoption of digital tools to power hybrid work has shifted to more focused conversations on optimising existing workflows, doubling down on security and governance, and, most notably, an awareness and conscious effort to reduce carbon footprints.
The growing awareness of climate change and the impact it has on our environment has large law firms really examining their practices. As one of the most paper-intensive industries in the world, it’s not an overstatement to say that the legal sector is a significant contributor to carbon emissions. From printed paper to the high energy cost associated with running an office, commuting, and business travel – it adds up.
With the UK’s pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, law firms are stepping up and taking necessary steps to reduce their carbon footprint: implementing energy-efficient measures in their offices, using renewable energy sources like solar panels, and encouraging staff to adopt greener ways of commuting and operating.
The growing awareness of climate change and the impact it has on our environment has large law firms really examining their practices.
One of our clients told me a story about his frustration with their office’s automatic lights. As a progressive law firm, they instilled automatic lights to reduce energy costs. With a hybrid work model and fewer people in the office, it was a smart move. The only hiccup? The mail cart. This firm still has physical mail being hand delivered via mail cart to offices. So as the mail cart gets pushed down the aisles of the office in the early morning before anyone is in the office, it triggers lights to turn on. One by one, as the cart makes its way down the aisle, lighting up an office, hallway, etc. with no one in it. Idling for 5-10 minutes before detecting the room is once again empty and shutting off. For the square footage of the law office, I understand my client’s frustration.
That’s when we started talking about MailQ – our digital mailroom solution that eliminates the need for a mail cart. Physical mail gets scanned into a Shared Queue where attorneys or Delegates can act – profiling it to the DMS, responding, or trashing it if it’s junk mail. Timely mail never gets missed because it’s not sitting on a desk waiting for someone to handle it, and of course, the lights in the office stay off.
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