Sustainability policy

Our pledge to provide and support environmentally sustainable family mediation.

As an organisation providing or supporting family mediation, recognising the urgent need to reduce our impact on the climate, we are committed to the following:

1. We will take steps to reduce the environmental impact/ carbon footprint of our work and office
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2. We will consider environmental factors in our decision-making wherever possible, including:

• The shapes, formats and venues of any events, training or conferences we promote or participate in, including environmentally friendly catering
• The appropriateness of travelling to, and our mode of travel to and from, meetings, conferences and other events, wherever possible encouraging and using live streaming/remote participation options or transport with a lesser carbon footprint;
• The extent to which staff are encouraged/ discouraged to work from home/ attend the office, taking into account any staff welfare/ mental health implications of such decision
• Promoting correspondence and communication by electronic means, unless hard copies are expressly required in the circumstances, while recognising that electronic communication itself is carbon emitting and should be limited to what is necessary
• In all aspects of our work, considering the most environmentally friendly way to travel if travel is necessary, and, if appropriate, encouraging colleagues, clients and others to do the same
• Encouraging, wherever possible, an environmentally friendly approach to the use of consumables (for example the avoidance of single-use plastic) and the use of energy (for example reviewing the level of air conditioning and heating)

3. In our support of mediation activity we will adopt the following principles:

• When discussing with (potential) clients whether their mediation assessment is to take place on-line or in-person, we will also consider the environmental impact of that decision
• When considering with clients what form their mediation should take, and in particular whether their mediation is to take place on-line or in-person, we will encourage our mediators explicitly to discuss with participants the environmental impact of that decision in the context of all other key factors such as safety, effectiveness and accessibility
• Unless there is a special need to do so arising from the nature of the discussions or financial disclosure, we will not request hard copies of documents to be provided and  will discourage the use of hard copy documents generally
• If screen sharing/video technology is appropriate, accessible and acceptable to all concerned, we will encourage its use in all aspects of our mediation

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