We know our activities have both direct and indirect environmental impacts and as a socially responsible organisation we have committed to reducing our impact on the environment and being a sustainable organisation. We have identified our key environmental impact focus areas as purchasing, waste, travel and energy and water usage alongside raising awareness and promoting responsibility with our staff.

Key commitments

Raising awareness and promoting responsibility

We will:

• promote responsibility for the environment by communicating our commitments to our staff and publishing on our website;
• set up an environmental focus group encouraging staff to make suggestions; and
• promote and encourage involvement in local environmental initiatives/schemes.

Purchasing

We will:

• use supplies that are recycled and recyclable to minimise the consumption of natural resources; and

• work with our suppliers to ensure the services we use, and goods we buy are responsibly produced and sourced, minimising the creation of waste, including packaging. This will include reducing our use of plastics.

Waste

We will:

• reduce the waste we generate and minimise the waste we send to landfill by reducing what we use and promoting reuse, and recycling.

Energy and water

We will:

• work with our landlords to minimise use of energy in the building and influence them to purchase energy generated from sustainable (non-carbon) sources; and
• work with our landlords to ensure water use in the building is as efficient as possible.

Travel

We will:

• prioritise the use of hybrid and electric hire vehicles when public transport is not available or practical; and
• continue to support and encourage the use of video meetings between staff and for corporate meetings to limit our need for staff to travel to their workplace and to attend meetings.

Reporting and evaluation

We will:

• set and review performance against objectives and targets to improve our environmental performance;
• report annually on utilities consumption, waste disposal for each office, and our business travel carbon footprint;
• consider the environmental impact of any changes we introduce to how and where we work; and
• ensure that our policies and services are reviewed and developed in a way that is complementary to this statement.

This statement aims to build on work we have already done and further reduce our impact on the environment.

We have already:

• reduced our use of paper by moving to an electronic case management system;
• reduced business travel by introducing video-meetings between staff, with meetings only held in person by exception; and
• supported our landlords to introduce recycling in all our offices.

September 2022