Sharing your details

IEMA shares its plans on how it will help members to network more easily

The January issue of the environmentalist opened with the Institute’s chief executive, Tim Balcon, revealing some of the key details of IEMA’s Vision 2020, saying that it is focused on “supporting its engaged, ambitious and tenacious members”. Part of that support is about facilitating the ability of members to connect with both IEMA and each other.

The IEMA community of environment and sustainability practitioners relies not only on input from the Institute, but contributions of knowledge, experience and advice from the membership. For this to thrive, members must have every opportunity to be able to directly connect with other members.

The IEMA LinkedIn groups and its Twitter activity provide opportunities for this, but being able to share basic contact information – name and email address – with other members, solely for the purpose of engaging in IEMA-related activity, will enhance the ability of members to actively participate, network and collaborate.

Following advice from the Information Commissioner’s Office on the best way to share members’ contact details and remain compliant with the Data Protection Act, a resolution was passed at the 2013 AGM to enable data sharing to take place where individual members grant permission. From 1 March, all members will have the opportunity to share their basic contact details and request those of other members where appropriate.

All members will be listed by default as “opted in” unless IEMA has been notified otherwise, but can opt-out at any time. Every member was contacted by either email or letter in January, allowing a full 30-day period to opt-out of the scheme prior to launch.

If you have not yet opted out and would like to do so, simply email [email protected] with your name and membership number and IEMA will ensure your details are not made available. If the Institute does not hear from you, it will assume that you are happy to share your details with other IEMA members.

Full details about sharing your details are available from iema.net/membership-your-details. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact the Institute at [email protected].