News & Views

Before you tuck into your next Mars Bar (or Snickers or any other product from Uncle Ben's or the Mars Company, consider this... Mars is one of Australia's biggest manufacturers and uses just over 100 gigawatts of energy a year - enough for a small country!.

The good news is, however, that Mars say in Australia, they will be moving to entirely renewable energy in the next year as part of their plan to be globally carbon-neutral by 2040. To achieve this they have signed a 20-year power purchase deal that will support development of the Kiamal Solar Farm near Ouyen in northern Victoria, due for completion in mid-2019. See a more detailed article from the Sydney Morning Herald HERE. So feel good about tucking in but watch your waistline!.

Lawyer jokes aside, we know that our member firms are all really good at getting groups together and donating blood. We also all know how competitive lawyer groups can be. So here is a chance to combine both opportunities!.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service have recently launched 'Red 25', which is a life-saving social responsibility program where workplaces, community groups and universities around Australia unite to save lives through blood donation. Red 25 members work together to ensure that 25% of Australia's blood donations are secured. See how it works by going to the RED 25 website HERE.

Despite the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh five years ago, it is estimated that there are still more than 24 million  people engaged in 'modern slavery', working to produce consumer goods.

The attached article from ABC news paints a very dark picture of the current situation, but serves as a reminder to us about how vigilant we must be in understanding the activities of our supply chains. Enough said.

Thomson Reuters, Lawyers Weekly and The Hon. Michael Kirby, AC CMG reflect on LGBTI Inclusion, diversity and advocacy in this thirty minute informative podcast.

CLICK HERE for an AusLSA downloaded copy of the podcast
or
CLICK HERE to go to the Lawyers Weekly site

If you are your firm's premises manager, sustainability manager or on your building committee, you probably know that you are under a three pronged attack - that the built environment is the biggest contributor to GHG emissions; that the cost of outgoings and utilities like water and electricity are on the rise, and that your stakeholders expect you to be environmentally responsible. 

See the linked article from Brisbane based Cromwell Property group (courtesy of 'The Sustainability Report') about that very issue, with some tips you can use to ask how green is my building - as well as a reminder that sustainability and profits are not mutually exclusive!!.

Issue 92 (2018) of the Australian Law Journal has an article from Justice Tim Moore of the Land and Environment Court of NSW about the recent collaborative "Paperless Trial" project between AusLSA, The Court and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. The project has saved in excess of 200,000 pages of copying, together with associated environmental impacts and costs and has been embraced by counsel and solicitors. While there was still some getting used to the screen instead of paper, the trial was a success and the Land and Environment Court considers paperless trials to be a significant option for the future. Due to copyright reasons, we can't link you to Justice Moore's story, but click on the screen grab above to see our video of the process, or grab your library copy of the ALJ.

As part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), goal 8.7 was inserted to specifically address forced labour, modern slavery, trafficking and child labour. Alliance87 was formed to assist in acheiving this ambitious undertaking.

As part of AusLSAs alignment to the SDGs we ask all our members to ensure vigilance in their supply chain. 

Click HERE to see the Alliance87 strategic vision.

To assist organisations understand  the benefits of Flexible Working, the Diversity Council of Australia (DCA)  has recently released a toolkit to try and 'debunk the myths of flexible working'.

As many of our AusLSA members know, flexible working policies are sometimes surrounded in stigma and myths that if you are not in the office, then you are not really working. We think that our member firms have passed this barrier, but the attached snapshot of DCA's work may help with any roadblocks that may still be out there. Click on THIS LINK to see the article.

While we recently reported the success of gender balance for lawyers in Victoria, New Zealand have taken this a little further by publishing a gender equality charter, which looks beyond the balance of numbers and asks why women are so far behind men in holding positions of seniority. The Charter asks signatories to undertake a number of commitments over a two year period and to report their progress to the New Zealand Law Society.
In Australia, we acknowledge that we still have 'way to go' to achieve proper gender equality - perhaps this is a good example?.

While fossil fuels still dominate the generation of world energy, other renewable sources are quickly overtaking in 'new' capacity generation. In a recent report from Reuters, climate scientists are predicting that generation of energy from renewable resources should dominate world energy demand by mid century. Last year 'new' energy generation in China was 157 gigawatts, more than double that from fossil fuel. The head of UN Environment feels that we are at a 'turning point' to take oil, coal and gas.

See the article from Thomson-Reuters HERE.