Supporting The Flipflopi Project from our home in East Africa
The Flipflopi Project is hugely grateful to all its supporters, including Anjarwalla & Khanna, the largest corporate law firm in Eastern Africa.
1. What led Anjarwalla & Khanna (A&K) to support the Flipflopi project? What role do you play/which activities do you support?
A&K strongly believes in its duty to play a positive role in society and to meaningfully impact the communities with whom we co-exist. A&K embraced the idea of supporting The Flipflopi Project because the Project provides a platform to spark and encourage the conversation around the dangers of single-use plastic on our environment with an objective to inspire people to find ways to repurpose ‘already-used’ plastic, from Kenya to the world.
We have supported The Flipflopi Project since its inception in a number of ways, including through the provision of pro bono legal assistance and supporting some of its activities.
2. What has been the highlight of your work so far?
For the first time, we introduced a CSR component at the 2018 ALN Africa Investment Conference in Dubai where we highlighted the work being undertaken by The Flipflopi Project to over 300 attendees from across six continents.
In February 2019, A&K, together with other key stakeholders and The Flipflopi Project team, participated in a beach clean-up exercise in Mombasa attended by c.300 people, which was one of the ports of call made by The Flipflopi Project as part of its expedition from Lamu to Zanzibar.
We look forward to supporting The Flipflopi Project’s 2020 expedition around Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest freshwater lake, which aims to catalyse behavioral and legislative change to address the range of economic, environmental, and societal issues impacting the 40 million persons supported by the Lake.
3. Which positive social and environmental changes do you hope will result from your partnership with the Flipflopi project?
Millions of people and industries around the world are dependent on healthy water and coral reefs for their livelihoods. However, these fragile ecosystems are under threat from human activity, particularly climate change and plastic pollution. At A&K, we believe that our partnership with The Flipflopi Project will increase public awareness on the impact of plastic pollution on our environment and the urgent need to advocate for a world free from single-use plastic.
4. How has the Flipflopi project inspired you to adopt and/or promote the principles of a circular economy within your organisation?
A&K has significantly reduced its use of single-use plastic for water consumption. One such measure is the use of reusable glass bottles rather than single-use plastic bottles for all our client meetings and events. We also offer lunch to our staff, which reduces their reliance on meals provided by food vendors who often use single-use plastic packaging. We have been working with our supply chain to advocate for minimal consumption and use of single-use plastic with a view that they join us in powering up a #plasticrevolution in 2020.
We are in the process of conducting a comprehensive audit of single-use plastics in the firm and to find sustainable solutions to eliminate our reliance on them. We are looking at ways in which we can spread the message and encourage our clients, suppliers and other partners to adopt internal processes and policies aimed at eliminating single-use plastics.
Additionally, we have, for the second year, purchased model Flipflopi dhows made by local artisans, as gifts to our clients to raise awareness on elimination of single-use plastics and to spur support for the #plasticrevolution.
What opportunities exist for legal firms in Kenya to contribute to the conservation sector?
Law firms can contribute to the conservation sector by offering their expertise and assistance to social enterprises and non-profit organisations that are working towards advancing a more sustainable world, such as The Flipflopi Project.
About Anjarwalla & Khanna
ALN Kenya|Anjarwalla & Khanna (A&K) is generally considered one of the leading corporate law firms in Kenya and is the largest full-service corporate law firm in East Africa, with over 100 lawyers. A&K is the founding member of ALN, an alliance of leading corporate law firms currently in fifteen key African jurisdictions and the UAE.
A&K has been named African Law Firm of the Year by the prestigious African Legal Awards four times since the awards were launched in 2013. A&K is also ranked as a leading firm by various international legal directories, including Chambers Global, IFLR1000 and Legal 500 in recognition of its local and Africa-wide work.