The Ethics of Green Guidance – Reflections on Transparency and Agendafication
Chris Targett
I have recently been reflecting on “Green Guidance” and the publication of the Green Guidance Handbooki. This has led me to two main thoughts, regards “Green Guidance”; to consider what it may mean for those of us, whose lives lead us to the daily practice of Personal Careers Guidance.
“Green Guidance” is an opportunity for our times and indicative of the days we live within. However, I believe that we must approach “Green Guidance” within an ethical framework of practice with our clients, in particular with regards the “transparency” of our purpose and intention when engaged in Personal Careers Guidance.
I’ve written a few times over the yearsii that Career Development Professionals aren’t truly neutral; we have hidden bias, despite best intentions. Due to this, I have continued to raise the importance of reflective practice, to guard against bias in our practice and protect our profession against an “agendafication” of careers practice, where we risk promoting one opportunity or pathway over another or championing one ideal over another (no matter how seemingly worthy).
We should consider as practitioners, how the questions we ask of our clients, are made through our own uniquely individual and inescapable personal world views or lens; we are not “coolly neutral”. Therefore, being aware of why we each ask the questions we do of our clients, via reflective practiceiii, matters. I continue to assert that sharing with our clients, why we ask the questions we do at the start of a Personal Guidance session is crucial, if we are to be completely transparent and open with our clients with regards to how (and why) we practice the way we do (as per our CDI code of ethicsiv).
The Open Partnership Model (OPM)
I helped to develop the Open Partnership Model (OPM) at CXK in 2014v with my colleagues Malcolm Scott RCDP and Vicki Love RCDP as a framework within which to share our intentions. OPM was also developed as a model to be used within Group Guidance and at Parents Evenings (when delivering drop-in guidance sessions); two contexts where it continues to be just as important for us, to be transparent with our clients (as in one-to-one sessions).
Although, within these situations, we are also being “transparent” with regards where time and/or resources are limited and what affect, this has upon what we can do in the time we have with each client.
Implications for Green Guidance
Taking the above points into consideration, and how they relate to “Green Guidance” we can consider “Green Guidance” to be a position from which we may choose and/or be able to practice from, depending upon who we work for and how much freedom we have to choose our own path with regards to how we practice.
As practitioners if we are driven to ask “Green” questions of our clients within our practice, we need to be accountable and transparent. To practice inline with our code of ethics and to be “transparent” we need to work within a framework (using OPM or similar); to be able to share our position from which we practice with our clients (before we work with them) so, that they can make an informed choice whether to work with us or not (and in doing so, the position from which we practice).
Maybe we will see a future, where some practitioners may choose to specialise as “Green Guidance Career Development Practitioners” or even organisations that will choose to specialise in the same. Much like we have different types of specialist Counsellorsvi or energy companies that only sell energy derived from renewable sources.
Such practitioners and organisations will be open from the outset with clients, regards the position from which they practice; thereby client centred with regards their delivery.
Contextual Considerations
Moving beyond the ethical dilemmas of tackling “Green Guidance” within Personal Careers Guidance, we can move to consider “Green issues” via a wider contextual lens; to free us from some aspects of the above ethical dilemmas.
In our broader careers delivery, we often have opportunities to debate the contextual issues affecting our clients and the wider issues affecting their choices (such as labour market information/intelligence and availability of different options). This type of delivery, from workshops, through to assemblies and keynote talks, falls outside of the individual focussed sessions of Personal Careers Guidance (where the very questions we ask, can potentially direct the ebb and flow of choice in a more individualised and nuanced way).
This epiphany came to me, whilst reflecting on a recent GCSE talk I gave in several of the schools in which I deliver, where we spent time reflecting on some of the biggest global factors affecting the future careers of the students (such as War, Climate Change, the Pandemic and Technological Changes).
We considered these factors as threats but also opportunities, requiring not only Scientists and Engineers to solve climate chaos, but also Journalists and Artists, to help reveal the world to us and build narratives around the big issues facing us today.
It is here, where “Green themed” group talks (alongside group talks considering other themes for balance) as a context and tool for challenge and change, is more appropriate; when delivered with suitable caveats to explain what the intention of such talks might be. Just as we do, as Career Development Professionals when giving talks on other areas such as Apprenticeships or Higher Education, where we explain that such talks seek to inform (as part of a wider, balanced career curriculum) rather than promote and/or push students down one particular path.
These caveats aren’t just “nice things to do” for clarity, but rather an alignment of our values as Career Development Professionals with our professional ethics, to not promote one pathway or world view over another. When in a position of providing a thematic session (focussed on one area), our professional ethics remind us to disclose that which, may bias our session (such as agenda) and affect the limits of our “impartialityvii”.
Summary
Group contexts open up doors for practitioners to explore with clients in a less agenda fuelled way, as well as to develop resources to help clients discover for themselves the “Green issues” affecting their life choices, as well as job or career opportunities they could pursue. This could be beyond what they may have considered so far; as part of the “Opportunity” aspect of DOTSviii.
One-to-one Personal Guidance and Group Personal Guidance, remain arenas where we must remain vigilant that external agendas do not over ride the client-centred, non-directive nature of our support. Where we need to be explicitly clear with regards our motivations behind why we ask the questions we do.
My hope is that this article creates space for reflection for Career Development Practitioners and Career Leaders, to consider how we build an ethical, transparent and client centred approach to careers delivery in the different contexts and roles in which we work, especially with regards how we include emerging areas of thought and approaches, such as “Green Guidance”.
© Chris Targett, June 2026
The views expressed in this article are entirely the authors and do not necessarily express those of his employer.
i https://www.green-guidance.eu/resources/green-guidance-handbook
ii In the magazine for Career Development Professionals, Career Matters published by the CDI and the Trotman books co-written with the indomitable Jules Benton.
iii Author of the CXK Reflective Practice Tool, December 2022 as published in Career Matters, April 2023 https://www.cxk.org/resources/cxk-reflective-practice-tool-for-careers-practitioners
iv https://www.thecdi.net/about-us/cdi-code-of-ethics
v Co-author of the interpretive model OPM for IAG: Open Partnership Model (OPM) as published in the June 2014 edition of Career Matters magazine by the CDI
vi https://www.bacp.co.uk/careers/counselling-and-therapy-as-a-career/where-therapists-work-and-what-they-do/
vii https://www.thecdi.net/about-us/cdi-code-of-ethics
viii https://marcr.net/for-career-professionals-and-learners/career_theories_a_to_z/dots-model/