Sustainability policy

I am committed to promoting sustainability. Concern for the environment and promoting a broader sustainability agenda are integral to our professional activities and the management of the organisation. We aim to follow and to promote good sustainability practice, to reduce the environmental impacts of all our activities and to help our clients and partners to do the same

Principles

Our Sustainability Policy is based upon the following principles:

• To comply with, and exceed where practicable, all applicable legislation, regulations and codes of practice.
• To integrate sustainability considerations into all our business decisions.
• To ensure that all staff are fully aware of our Sustainability Policy and are committed to implementing and improving it.
• To minimise the impact on sustainability of all office and transportation activities.
• To make clients and suppliers aware of our Sustainability Policy, and encourage them to adopt sound sustainable management practices.
• To review, annually report, and to continually strive to improve our sustainability performance.

Practical steps

In order to put these principles into practice we will:

• Travel and meetings

  • Avoid physically travelling to meetings etc where alternatives are available and practical, such as using teleconferencing, video conferencing or web cams, and efficient timing of meetings to avoid multiple trips. These options are also often more time efficient, while not sacrificing the benefits of regular contact with clients and partners.
  • Walk, cycle and/or use public transport to attend meetings, site visits etc, apart from in exceptional circumstances where the alternatives are impractical and/or cost prohibitive.
  • Include the full costs of more sustainable forms of transport in our financial proposals, rather than the least cost option which may involve travelling by car or air. Where the only practical alternative is to fly, we will include costs for full air fares rather than budget airlines in our financial proposals
  • Reduce the need for our staff to travel by supporting alternative working arrangements, including home working etc, and promote the use of public transport by locating our offices in accessible locations

• Purchase of equipment and consumption of resources

  • Minimise our use of paper and other office consumables, for example by double-siding all paper used, and identifying opportunities to reduce waste.
  • As far as possible arrange for the reuse or recycling of office waste, including paper, computer supplies and redundant equipment.
  • Reduce the energy consumption of office equipment by purchasing energy efficient equipment and good housekeeping.
  • Seek to purchase electricity from a supplier committed to renewable energy.
  • Seek to maximise the proportion from renewable energy sources, whilst also supporting investment in new renewable energy schemes.
  • Ensure that timber furniture, and any other timber products, are recycled or from well-managed, sustainable sources and are Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

• Digital practices

  • Choose providers who share the same ethos as us and use renewable energy to help keep our impact as low as possible.
  • Ensure files are shared using secure methods that aren't attached to emails; this will include using services such as WeTransfer or utilising the share facility from a cloud storage provider.
  • Minimise the amount of cloud storage required by storing client files online for a period of 12 months; once this time has elapsed the file may be deleted, stored offline onto a physical medium or left in place. This decision will be made based on the relationship with the client and the nature of the documents held.
  • Strive to minimise the impact of our website by reducing asset size its minimum and questioning its necessity.
  • Follow all guidance stated in Sustainable Web Design, Web Sustainability Guidelines and the Green Software Foundation catalog wherever possible.

• Working practices and advice to clients

  • Undertake voluntary work with the local community and / or environmental organisations and make donations to seek to offset carbon emissions from our activities.
  • Ensure that any associates that we employ take account of sustainability issues in their advice to clients.
  • Include a copy of this Sustainability Policy in all our proposals to clients.