IAS was selected alongside Atkins, Bristol City Council and HSBC as case studies at the CMA Carbon Intent Project Presentation of its report on 20 April in Southampton Street, London WC2 supported by the Carbon Trust. IAS was identified as an organisation that has taken active steps to reduce its carbon footprint. The report suggests recommendations to help organisations demonstrate a return on investment when adopting home working and teleconferencing as part of an ongoing strategy to lower their carbon emissions. Data from 85 organisations already using some or a combination of home-working (including remote call centres) and teleconferencing were analysed for potential carbon dioxide savings by Hannover Consultancy, CMA’s appointed sustainability consultancy.

During his presentation about IAS Keith Best the Chief Executive described how audio-conferencing is used for meetings of the Senior Management Team and Senior Management Executive Team, how offices are located where possible near to the courts to minimise the cost of travel, staff are encouraged to undertake work at home (for example, the Director of Operations has no actual office other than her home) and even mentioned how he uses his bicycle to get around London to meetings!

"The decision to partner with Home Call Centre was the best decision we made in 2008” he said. “They have transformed our business by significantly increasing revenue, reducing cost, improving service quality and now proving we are able to reduce our carbon impact." He referred to the fact that the number of telephone calls has been reduced as, previously, many of these were the same people trying to get through but now their initial calls are answered by telephone operators. He mentioned that these operators work from their homes and that many of them are disabled, thereby fulfilling another ambition of offering work to disabled people.

“This exercise in examining our carbon footprint and reducing it has opened our eyes to opportunities of cost-saving as well as being an ecologically friendly organisation. We must now incorporate this into our planning and monitor how we are saving energy, such as by insisting that staff turn off their computers every evening, the use of laptops (which capture client data when our caseworkers hold surgeries away from our offices) and other measures.”

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