Sustainability

In July 2021 ITI signed up to the Charter for Climate Action.

In doing so, alongside 45 of the UK's leading professional institutions, ITI highlighted its commitment to supporting members in prioritising both the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement in our work.

The Charter requires three commitments from professional bodies. Firstly a pledge to chart a path to help their members deliver sustainability across their organisation or business, and a promise to report on and share resources. Secondly it commits institutions to speaking with a unified voice in discussions with other bodies, the government, and the public in support of wider climate action.

And finally, institutions signing up to the Charter have pledged to empower and inspire their members to drive sustainable growth, by providing continuous professional development tools, principles, and resources that help enable the adoption of environmental best practices. Read more about the Climate Action Charter.

ITI has taken measures to support our members to be more environmentally sustainable in their own business and resources are available in the members' only area of the website here. In addition, ITI is also committed to becoming a more sustainable organisation; here are measures that we have taken so far.

ITI office location

ITI moved to its current location in 2011. The business centre where we are located is owned by Capital Space who are committed to sustainability, environmental and waste management. You can read more about what they are doing across all their business sites here. 

Since publishing their sustainability policy, the business centre has achieved the following (as of 2023):

• Reduced gas consumption (feeding the central heating in our office) by 14% vs 2021.
• The reduction of 19,000 kwh of natural gas across the site converts to an estimated reduction of 3,500kg CO₂.
• The reduction of 203,025 kwh of electricity (via use of solar panels and green energy generation).
• Boiler temperature was reduced saving approximately 17% energy use.
• Car park lights were recently fittedwith lower wattage bulbs, saving both energy and reducing costs.
• 9,925 pages of paper have been removed from operations by sending documents via Docusign. In 2023 carbon emmisions were reduced by 2,947lb, 3,647 gallons of water conserved and 1,255lb of wood saved – almost double the savings compared to 2022. 

ITI office team

The ITI office team have been working hard behind the scenes to reduce the resources we use and be more sustainable wherever possible. Here is what we have achieved over the last 3 years:

• 95% of our membership packs are now sent by email rather than by post
• The ITI Bulletin is available to view online and almost a third of members now read the Bulletin this way rather than receive a paper copy
• Since the pandemic ITI has adopted a hybrid approach to working which saves on average 1000 miles of staff travel by car a week
• We are striving to make the ITI Conference more sustainable. At the 2022 conference we had no printed programme, there were no plastic water bottles and attendees are encouraged to bring refillable bottles, there were no bags with promotional materials, lanyards and badge holders were collected for use at future events and shared cars for travel
• Only essential documents are printed in the office– since the pandemic we have seen a reduction of 90% in our printing
• We endeavour to support local independent businesses by utilising their products and services  
• Replacing in-person workshops with online events has significantly reduced our carbon footprint and that of participants.