I’ve taken the pledge for green­er arbit­ra­tions. What’s that?

The inter­na­tion­al arbit­ra­tion com­munity has talked about how we might arbit­rate cli­mate change issues. We’ve not spent the same amount of time talk­ing about our own impact on cli­mate change. We need to do that. Bet­ter still, we need to act on it.

The pledge for green­er arbit­ra­tions out­lines a few spe­cif­ic steps which an arbit­ra­tion prac­ti­tion­er can take to reduce the impact of arbit­ra­tion on the cli­mate. As an arbit­ra­tion prac­ti­tion­er I will, wherever pos­sible:

• Con­sider and ques­tion the need to fly;
• Off­set the car­bon emis­sions of any flights I make to and from arbit­ra­tion hear­ings;
• Not travel unne­ces­sar­ily to delib­er­ate with my co-arbit­rat­ors, and use screen shar­ing or video tech­no­logy instead;
• Sug­gest, where appro­pri­ate, that wit­nesses give evid­ence through video con­fer­ence rather than attend hear­ings in per­son;
• Not request hard cop­ies of doc­u­ments to be provided to me;
• Strongly dis­cour­age the use of hard copy bundles in hear­ings;
• Review the level of air con­di­tion­ing in hear­ing rooms.

The pledge for green­er arbit­ra­tions was Lucy Green­wood’s idea. If you’re an arbit­ra­tion prac­ti­tion­er and would like to take it as well, you may do so here.