At the end of COP 26, I am sure many of us are wondering what our leaders have committed to, and will it achieve what we all hope it will?

Here at The Counselling Foundation, we are doing our bit to reduce our carbon footprint by making changes in the way we deliver our services and our use of IT. Our ways of working this past year have radically changed due to Covid and whilst it has been a really challenging time to operate, it has also made us re-think our operating model and use of IT systems.

As a team, we committed to 3 core principles within our IT strategy:

1. Location independence, the ability to work with the same capability from any location
2. Consider the carbon impact of strategic and investment decisions
3. Donate our end-of-life equipment to other charities and individuals needing support.

In the past few months all our application services have move to cloud based, and team members all have laptops with headsets, minimum equipment with full capability to work from anywhere. Our office environments are now being stripped of assets that typically sit there using power, with very little actual use.

Significantly, we have developed effective online services allowing us to successfully deliver many of our counselling services virtually. Our training services are also virtual as appropriate with BACP guidance and as needed in the current environment. All this reduces travel and its associated carbon impact on society.

We will be going further in the next 12 months replacing expensive to buy and maintain laptops, with Chromebooks and similar devices.