Our Sustainability Principles

Although Ipsa Consulting is generally concerned with examining and developing sustainable strategies for others, it is important that we take the time to evaluate our own actions. With this in mind, we have produced a list of 13 actions designed to enhance our future sustainability.

1. Sustainably sharing documents

Sharing important documents is unavoidable and the average day sees Ipsa Consulting sending out many reports and strategies to clients. However, there are ways to reduce the environmental impact of this. We opt for sharing documents as a link to the cloud instead of attaching a copy to an email, which can reduce the associated emissions by 92%.

2. No ‘thank you’ emails

Based on the 1 gram of carbon emissions related to each small text-based email sent, it is important to always be sure of the value of the information contained within. Emails which serve only to say ‘thank you’ are avoided at Ipsa Consulting. This might seem like an insignificant action but, to quantify the effect this has on a larger scale, if every adult in Britain sent one less ‘thank you’ email every day, we would save 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year.

3. Getting rid of old and unimportant emails

It can be very easy to allow old emails to stack up in your inbox without considering the idea that each requires energy to be used by a server to store its data. Going forward, we will instead ensure that all emails apart from those containing essential information are deleted. Also emails saved with large attachments will be separated and the documents will be saved in a drive. 

4. Choosing remote calls over in-person meetings

Where possible, remote calls will be used instead of meeting clients face-to-face to reduce the amount of travel associated with our operations. A recent study found that this switch can result in a 94% reduction in the carbon footprint of meetings.

5. Using public transport for meetings

For those meetings, workshops, or training courses that must be done in-person, we will opt for public transport. Although it is very easy to simply get in a car and drive, a significant amount of emissions can be cut by travelling on the train or bus.

6. Funding more projects through Ecologi

So far, we have offset two tonnes of carbon by funding renewable energy and transport projects through Ecologi – this is great but we want to go further! There are many further carbon-reducing projects on Ecologi that we are looking to support in the near future. We understand that offsetting is not the antidote, but part of a much wider solution which is why we continue to reduce our emissions at the same time as funding tree planting and carbon capture projects.

7. Recycling all paper

In an ideal world printing out documents should be avoided – instead they should be distributed digitally – however, sometimes it is unavoidable. When any paper is used at Ipsa Consulting we will ensure that it is all recycled. This is perhaps an obvious point but over 75% of paper in UK offices still ends up in the waste stream.

8. Using sustainable business cards

Recently we have made the move from professionally printed business cards to self-making them using a rubber stamp and pre-ordered plain card. This has held some environmental advantages, but we want to go a step further by using recycled scrap card, which will help us to further limit our waste production and use of raw materials.

9. Paying fair wages

All employees at Ipsa Consulting will be appropriately paid for any work they do. This means an hourly rate of at least National Living Wage, and paying for any overtime work completed. And we never take on unpaid interns.

10. Ensuring equal opportunities

In recruitment, and on the job, we will treat candidates and workers with equal respect. Individuals will be provided with the same opportunities regardless of their background.

11. Using sustainable suppliers

We will continue to ensure that all of our suppliers are acting in an environmentally and socially responsible way; any suppliers that we find to be exploitative will be replaced.

12. Dealing only with ethical clients

Due to the diverse range of organisations that approach us, there is a constant need to assess the products and services of each company to check that they are ethical. Ipsa Consulting’s sustainability could be compromised if we provide service to an exploitative company. We will never work with an organisation that is knowingly or intentionally doing harm to people or the planet.