Widener University School of Law announced it has joined the American Bar Association – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Law Office Climate Challenge.
Widener is one of just five law schools nationwide to be accepted into the voluntary program, which was introduced in March 2007 to encourage law offices to take specific steps to conserve energy and resources. The challenge has more than 200 participants, mostly law firms.
Of the four avenues for participation, Widener Law chose to qualify for the challenge by adopting best practices for office paper management. The commitment means the law school will recycle at least 90 percent of its office paper, file folders and envelopes, and the school has adopted a policy for double-sided copying and printing. The school is setting all its shared printers to default to double-sided copies.
“We have positioned ourselves as leaders in the greening of U.S. law schools,” Widener Law’s Assistant Dean for Business and Administration Verne R. Smith said.
Widener Law is one school sitting on two campuses, in Harrisburg, Pa. and Wilmington, Del. Smith, whose office is based in Delaware, worked closely with Harrisburg campus Vice Dean Robyn Meadows on the application for the climate challenge. The two, acting with a “Green Committee” on their respective campuses, surveyed operations and looked for ways to implement best practices and get Widener involved in the challenge.
The school has a strong environmental law program. It is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic on the Delaware campus this year, and the clinic will expand to the Harrisburg campus in January. Last month the school launched anEnvironmental Law Center, which is intended to harness the expertise of the environmental law faculty from both locations in a new effort to benefit students and the public. The center operates under the motto “Law for Sustainability.” Months of planning for the center inspired the school to implement best practices and enroll in the climate challenge, Meadows said.
“We wanted to be a part of the challenge because it is the right thing to do for the environment,” Meadows said. “We also felt that, because Widener provides such an ambitious environmental law program, we had an obligation to lead by example.”
The school has also implemented additional improvements. On the Delaware campus, Widener has partnered with the Delaware Solid Waste Authority for the additional recycling of materials such as cans, bottles, newspapers and cardboard. The Harrisburg campus recycles those additional materials through its agreement with Penn Waste. The school has also invested in new recycle bins for each office and for common areas at both campus locations.
