“The ground is so wet; it wasn’t like this in the past. We can’t get started on this year’s soil preparation.”

In a recent mediation involving farmers, this was the response to my early inquiry about how things were going, generally. These days, I find that the topic of climate change and its effects arises, incidentally, quite often in mediations across a whole range of topics.

Last week, I attended a seminar addressed by the chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC: http://www.ukhealthalliance.org/about/). The UKHACC brings together doctors, nurses and other health professionals to advocate for responses to climate change that protect and promote public health. It coordinates action, provides leadership and helps amplify the voices of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals across the UK. The chair was both articulate and forthright about the risks we all face, the effects on healthcare and the opportunities for health care professionals to do things differently to help mitigate the impact.

That got me thinking. Many of us have argued for years that mediation and encouraging interest-based negotiation is a demonstration of a sustainable, efficient, cost-effective alternative to an otherwise energy-consuming, expensive, carbon intensive process we call litigation. In many ways, mediation is a classic example of finding a better way to use scarce resources which would otherwise be diverted to less purposeful activity, helping to reduce unnecessary cost, saving time and labour, building more enduring, creative outcomes and renewing what might otherwise be dissipated energy. In other words, traditional zero sum, adversarial, win/lose paradigms are bad for the planet, while mediation fits into the model of environmentally friendly options.

If these propositions are broadly correct, what might that mean for mediators and our own practices?

Well, it suggests we can even more confidently promote what we do in the context of what will need to be rapid and wide-ranging changes to the way people do business. We can help in the initial stages of deal-making and alliance building, throughout the duration of projects and contracts in our role as conflict management specialists and, of course, down the line if and when disputes arise and need to be addressed quickly and effectively. This may only be achieved with a step change in what we do and how we do it, a quantitative shift in how and when we are utilised.

Secondly, it may mean that we need to consider how we go about what we do. Recently, I was invited to speak in Brussels about Mediation and Climate Change (for my full text, please email me at john.sturrock@core-solutions.com). I can fly from Edinburgh to Brussels in just over 90 minutes. That would have been the preferable way to travel if I wanted to maximise my time to do other things before the event at which I was speaking. However, I chose to go by train, which involved a five-hour journey to London on the evening before, an overnight stay in London and catching an early morning Eurostar train to Brussels, another journey of nearly two hours. This meant that I had to plan my time differently and could not try to pack in an additional piece of work on the preceding day.

We are deeply committed to our calling. Many of us try to do a lot each week. But what are the implications for our mode of travel? What effect does it have on our carbon footprint? Might we mediators need to think about these things, such as the frequency of, and how we get to and from, our mediations? Is there someone more local who could do the job? And what about other aspects of what we do? Does everybody who attends mediation need to be there? Do we need to have folders of papers in hard copy form? Or could we all survive with only electronic transmission of documents? Probably? Perhaps many of us do so already.

We regularly travel far to attend conferences. How sustainable is that? What are the alternatives? How can we optimise our use of such travel as we do undertake?

I appreciate that this leads us to consideration of online dispute resolution and conferencing. Clearly that has a huge role to play as we seek to reduce travel and time spent. However, I was impressed recently to read about the contrast in the brain’s responses to online socialising and physical meeting. The comparison was made between the addictive dopamine hit you get from a social media connection and the rich stew of oxytocin, prolactin and endorphins provoked by “real, actual human contact” (see The Changing Mind by Daniel Levitin). There will often be no substitute for meeting in a physical location. Perhaps, at least, what I am exploring here is about how to make those occasions when mediation is best done face to face as environmentally friendly as possible.

So, to wrap up: anyone for a World Mediators Alliance on Climate Change? WoMACC has a ring to it. To mirror the UKHACC, WoMACC would advocate for responses to climate change that protect and promote environmentally friendly dispute management and resolution. It would coordinate action, provide leadership and help amplify the voices of mediators across the globe. It would be our contribution to humanity’s survival and thriving.


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10 comments

  1. Thanks John, a point well made. It’s surprising how readily you can get used to meeting online, or creatively using a combination of text and face-to-face via platforms like Zoom. Perhaps it’s time for some sort of mediator pledge to use the least environmentally damaging form of communication possible in any situation.

  2. Thanks John. The idea of a global alliance of mediators/facilitators on climate change is a splendid one – and I’d want to ensure that the ‘catchment’ for that group included those beyond the conventional professional groups of mediators, given the susceptibility of – for example – small island states to the impact of climate change. As Barry Lopez write so eloquently (see his “Horizon”), there are rich veins of indigenous wisdom to call on in such cases.

    Your practical point about the ways in which we meet and travel is also absolutely right – as is the awareness that we still need the human aspect of face to face contact; but need to think about how important that overseas flight really is. One of the climate scientists here in NZ resolved not to fly, internationally or domestically, for year – no international conferences but joining in, as Charlie notes, by the array of technologies we have – and travelled by electric car, train etc.

    1. Ian- I have adopted that policy in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Singapore is very enlightened -and we have had no deaths so far…I am working from home in office, trying to do some international mediations, training, conference moderating. The American Bar Association has been doing terrific online CLE courses – they have it figured out. I hope there will be permanent changes in the workplace as a result of this terrible pandemic period… Have been in India three times in the past year and given traffic and poor air quality in Delhi and nearby, online and work from home is the only way… the world’s biggest IT companies have now adopted work at home policies…

      Let’s emerge from this period to make a much better world via online modes!

      Pauline

    1. Anna – what a remarkable coincidence! This is wonderful stuff. I wonder if Lucy would permit us to adapt this for mediators?
      How about this as a draft:

      “As a mediation community, we have talked about how we might mediate climate change issues. We have not spent the same amount of time talking about how as a community we might address climate change.

      The time has come to address our contribution to the climate emergency facing us all. The pledge outlines concrete steps that each of us can take which will reduce the impact of each and every mediation upon the climate. Please sign up below to show your support for this small initiative which could, we hope, have a major impact upon our behaviour and fundamentally change the way in which we conduct mediations. The pledge is intended to be broad enough to allow all those involved in mediation to make small changes to our behaviour and to lead the way in responsible mediating.

      As a mediator committed to ensuring that I minimise the impact on the environment of every mediation I am involved in I will ensure that, wherever possible:

      At all times during the mediation process I will consider and question the need to fly;

      At all times during the mediation process I will only correspond through electronic means unless hard copy correspondence is expressly required in the circumstances;

      As a mediator, I will not request hard copies of documents to be provided to me;

      As a mediator, I will discourage the use of hard copy documents generally;

      I will review the level of air conditioning, heating and other energy use in rooms in which I am mediating;

      As a mediator, I will not travel unnecessarily to pre-mediation meetings and will use screen sharing/video technology instead;

      I will offset the carbon emissions of any flights I make to and from mediations while recognising that this is not in any way a substitute for avoiding flying unless necessary.”

  3. Dear John, you can count me in. The best emission is the No-mission. So what I do personally is to live as sustainable as possible in my daily life (e.g. local, seasonal food), reducing and reusing is the motto. And we should very well be aware of hypocrisy, e.g. flying regularly around the globe to conferences and complaining about climate change. To solve the gap between mere online contacts with low positive neurotransmitters and the real contact I suggest by cutting down the traveling around we can have the best of both worlds, as we can use the often still unknown effect that by remembering personal encounter we get almost the same amount of positive biochemical reactions. Again thanks for your thoughts.

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