Our Values and Policies
Gaia Resources is a bit different from your usual consulting companies. We have some different values, and we strive to develop:
- Strong relationships with our clients - through honest and open communications,
- The best holistic solutions for our clients - that are delivered with a high degree of value for money,
- Opportunities to assist researchers in the environmental field at lower rates - free where possible, and
- Environmentally responsible ways of conducting our business.
We have a few policies that affect the way we undertake our business. We think that some of these are pretty novel, and that they reflect our commitment to the values outlined above.
Business policies
- We provide a discount on our standard rate to companies that undertake environmental research as their primary business, and to clients that take up long-term projects.
- We view quoting as setting an upper limit for you - but not setting a minimum for us. If we finish the job under the quoted amount, you pay the lower rate, not what we quoted.
- We don't charge for producing reports - our rates are inclusive of our reporting requirements.
- We don't charge for travel time in the Metropolitan area.
- Bug fixes are free, no matter what.
Environmental Policies
- We always double-sided print our reports to reduce the paper we use.
- We always purchase printer paper with as high a recycled component as we can, and wherever we can, we purchase office stationery that has either a recyclable or biodegradable component.
- We recycle our office waste using our local council's supplied recycling bins - one for paper and one for plastics, glass and cans. We also collect our waste paper with a blank side to it and turn this into scratch pads.
- We recycle our printer cartridges through the Planet Ark recycling campaigns by dropping them off in the bins provided in the local post office.
- We use public transport wherever possible in the course of our business (like catching the train to meetings in town rather than taxis and parking) and to encourage this, we reimburse our employees for using public transport to get to work (yes, to get from their homes to our offices).
- We subscribe to Synergy's Natural Power product for 100% of our power - so we have no environmental impact from power use.
- We offset our carbon emissions for our waste, vehicle use and flights through Carbon Neutral. You can even view our calculations for 2007 as an Adobe PDF right here. This reduces our environmental impact even further.
Institutional Memberships
We are institutional members of Biodiversity Information Standards - TDWG (click to visit their web site):
Supporting
We use and recommend open source software from the OSGEO group (click to visit their web site):
Partners
Our partners in the solutions that we provide include the following organisations (in alphabetical order, click to visit their web sites):
Who or what is "Gaia"?
"Gaia" is the name of an ancient Greek (and Roman) goddess of the earth, and this name was also given to James Lovelock's hypothesis that the world was one big living organism. This idea - that everything is linked together - is something we want to carry forward in our business.