50 Ways to Green Your Firm
50 Ways to Green Your Law Firm – Just Make a New Plan Stan!
Are you building new space, renovating existing space or moving to new space and thinking of going green in the process? Ferraro Choi provided an informative and non-technical presentation on “how to green your office” to the Association of Legal Administrators at their annual 2012 Annual Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Attendees gained insight of how to green an existing or new office space and how to move towards a more sustainable and healthy workplace. Attendees also discovered how low impact office greening strategies that are universally applicable and cost effective are readily achievable whether or not LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification is sought. Intended to be very specific, practical and a “you-can-do-it-too” type of presentation, this informative and non-technical presentation included a case study of the greening of the offices of Ferraro Choi and a review of the normal challenges, cost considerations and metrics of success involved with “going green.”
Seminar goals:
- Identify the benefits and challenges in moving towards a more environmentally sustainable law office;
- Determine strategies for negotiating with architects and contractors to incorporate green initiatives in office build-outs, renovations, and/or new construction;
- Explain some of the inherent costs in “going green;”
- Discuss the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for commercial interiors.
Seminar information and useful links:
- Ferraro Choi’s presentation file (pdf file)
- Ferraro Choi’s Green Office Policy (pdf file)
- San Francisco’s Approved List of Green products: www.SFApproved.org
- EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) – a resource for greener electronics: www.epeat.net
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): www.epa.gov
Presenters from Ferraro Choi included Joseph J. Ferraro, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal and Co-Founder of Ferraro Choi and Associates Ltd, William (Bill) Brooks, AIA, LEED® AP, Principal, and Karen Busekrus, Office Manager since 1996.
The Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) was originally founded in 1971 to provide support to professionals involved in the management of law firms, corporate legal departments and government legal agencies. For more information on ALA, please visit their home page at: http://www.alanet.org/default.aspx