Founded | 1969 as 'Third World First' |
---|---|
Type | Company Limited by Guarantee and Charity registered in England & Wales and Scotland. |
Focus | Student activism, poverty, human rights and environmentalism |
Location | |
Area served | UK |
Method | Lobbying, protest, direct action |
Revenue | £380,000 Pound Sterling (2010–11) |
Volunteers | 20,000+ members of their primary mailing list |
Website | peopleandplanet.org |
People & Planet is a network of student campaign groups in the UK. It is "the largest student campaigning organisation in the country campaigning to alleviate world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment."
People & Planet is Britain's largest student network campaigning on global poverty, human rights, and the environment. The network has over 2,000 active members at 50 universities and 79 schools and colleges across the UK.
People & Planet groups are autonomous and there is no formal membership system. The organisation is overseen by a Board of Trustees, [1] the majority of whom are student members elected by the network. The support office, based in Oxford, provides training, outreach and resources to support groups and campaigns.
People & Planet is funded primarily by grants from trusts and foundations. [2] People & Planet has a Fundraising and Activist Network allowing members to make regular monthly donations that provide invaluable unrestricted income to support the organisation's work.
The organisation was founded in 1969 as Third World First by a group of students at Oxford University, [3] supported by NGOs including Oxfam. In 1997, the network voted to change the name to People & Planet.
Third World First was instrumental in setting up the magazine, The Internationalist which was later reincarnated as the now popular activist-magazine, The New Internationalist.
People & Planet's current campaign areas are climate action and the rights of migrants.
In 2015, People & Planet students democratically decided to introduce a migrants' rights campaign at annual summer camp Power Shift: Training for Change. Staff worked with students to develop the Undoing Borders campaign, launched in 2016. [4]
Currently, People & Planet are running a "Fossil Free Careers" campaign calling on UK universities careers' services to "end recruitment pipelines into the oil, gas and mining industries [5] ." As of June 2023, 4 universities had committed to Fossil Free Careers: Wrexham Glyndwr University, The University of Bedfordshire, University of the Arts London and Bishops Grosseteste University. 15 Students' Unions have also agreed to boycott oil and gas recruitment events.
In 2013, the People & Planet network launched a new campaign targeting the fossil fuel industry, and in particular the role of fossil fuels. Working in partnership with 350.org, the Fossil Free UK campaign aims to sever the links between the fossil fuel industry and UK universities. These links include investments and endowments, academic research, sponsorship and partnership arrangements.
In 2017, People & Planet introduced a new climate campaign targeting high-street banks over their financing of fossil fuels. Divest Barclays [6] took particular aim at Barclays due to its status as the worst bank in Europe for providing finance to fossil fuel projects and companies. [7] Students campaigned for universities and students' unions to boycott Barclays and took direct-action targeting Barclays' AGMs in 2018 [8] and 2019. [9]
People & Planet's previous climate change campaign, Going Greener aimed to create 'Transition Universities'. It brings together a student movement on campus working towards low-carbon, resilient and community-led education institutions that achieve carbon emissions reductions of at least 50% by 2020.
People & Planet activists have played a key role in action for social and environmental justice across a variety of campaigns.
People & Planet's University League [16] is the only comprehensive and independent ranking of UK universities by environmental and ethical performance. In 2019, the People & Planet University League was published in The Guardian. [17]
The People & Planet Green League was first published in 2007, as a way of driving forward environmental performance within the university sector. The People & Planet University League publicly benchmarks the sector's green credentials by combining universities' estates performance data with information about their environmental policies and management practices.
It initially scored UK universities on four key institutional factors needed to drive forward significant and sustained improvement in environmental performance, as highlighted by the Going Green report. [18] These criteria were:
Since the first Green League in 2007, People & Planet has widened the criteria to assess both policy and performance of higher education institutions. [19]
The University League is widely credited with shifting the UK's Higher Education sector towards improved environmental management and performance. In 2012, People & Planet awarded 46 First Class awards in the University League, compared to just 15 in 2007. Notable improvements have been measured in areas such as the proportion of renewable electricity used by universities (72%, up from 12% in 2007) and in the number of Fairtrade Universities (112, up from 41 in 2007). [20]
In 2012, People & Planet held its first ever Green League Graduation Ceremony in Westminster, celebrating the achievements of its top-ranking universities. [21]
The Green League won "Best Campaign" at the 2007 British Environment and Media Awards. [22]
The People & Planet Green League has been shortlisted for the Green Gown Awards, administered by the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC). [23]
Linacre College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the UK whose members comprise approximately 50 fellows and 550 postgraduate students.
The National Union of Students (NUS) is a confederation of student unions in the United Kingdom. Around 600 student unions are affiliated, accounting for more than 95% of all higher and further education unions in the UK. Although the National Union of Students is the central organisation for all affiliated unions in the UK, there are also the devolved national sub-bodies NUS Scotland in Scotland, NUS Wales in Wales and NUS-USI in Northern Ireland.
The Oxford University Students' Union is the official students' union of the University of Oxford. It is better known in Oxford under the branding Oxford SU or by its previous name of OUSU. It exists to represent Oxford University students in the university's decision-making, to act as the voice for students in the national higher education policy debate, and to provide direct services to the student body. The president for the 2024–25 academic year is Addi Haran Diman.
Power Shift is an annual youth summit which has been held in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Other Power Shift Conferences are also being organised by members of the International Youth Climate Movement including Africa, Japan and India. The focus of the events is on climate change policy.
The politics of climate change results from different perspectives on how to respond to climate change. Global warming is driven largely by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human economic activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, certain industries like cement and steel production, and land use for agriculture and forestry. Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels have provided the main source of energy for economic and technological development. The centrality of fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive industries has resulted in much resistance to climate friendly policy, despite widespread scientific consensus that such policy is necessary.
The People & Planet Green League is the only comprehensive and independent ranking of United Kingdom universities by environmental and ethical performance and practice. It is compiled by the student campaign group People & Planet. From 2007 to 2010 the Green League was published annually in the Times Higher Education Supplement, but since 2011 it has been published in The Guardian.
This article includes information about environmental groups and resourcesthat serve K–12 schools in the United States and internationally. The entries in this article are for broad-scope organizations that serve at least one state or similar regions.
Power Shift Network is a North American non-profit organization made up of a network of youth-led social and environmental justice organizations working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement. It runs campaigns in the United States and Canada to build grassroots power and advocate for tangible changes on climate change and social justice at local, state, national and international levels in North America. The organization changed its name from Energy Action Coalition in July 2016 in order to reflect its new leadership and it shift from a coalition to a network structure. The Power Shift Network's members, which include other non-profit organizations and student groups focused on environmental justice, social justice, and climate change, focus their organizing and campaigns on campuses, communities, corporate practices, and politics. The Power Shift Network is part of the Global Youth Climate Movement.
350.org is an international environmental organization addressing the climate crisis. Its stated goal is to end the use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy by building a global, grassroots movement.
Kumi Naidoo is a South African human rights and climate justice activist. He was International Executive Director of Greenpeace International and Secretary General of Amnesty International. Naidoo served as the Secretary-General of CIVICUS, the international alliance for citizen participation, from 1998 to 2008. As a fifteen-year old, he organised students in school boycotts against the apartheid regime and its educational system in South Africa. Naidoo's activism went from neighbourhood organising and community youth work to civil disobedience with mass mobilisations against the white controlled apartheid government. Naidoo is a co-founder of the Helping Hands Youth Organisation. He has written about his activism in this period in his memoirs titled Letters to My Mother: The Making of a Troublemaker. In the book Naidoo recounts the day of his mother's suicide when he was just 15 and how it became a catalyst for his journey into radical action against the Nationalist Party's apartheid regime.
Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) is the European branch of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International (FOEI). It includes 33 national organizations and thousands of local groups.
Rising Tide UK is the United Kingdom part of the International Rising Tide Network, both of which were created in 2000 to carry out direct action against the root causes of climate change, and to work towards a fossil fuel free future. RTUK takes a no-compromise position and believes that only the complete dismantling of the fossil fuel industry and a shift to low consumption lifestyles will be sufficient to halt climate change.
Plant-for-the-Planet is an organisation that aims to raise awareness among children and adults about the issues of climate change and global justice. The Initiative also works to plant trees and considers this to be both a practical and symbolic action in efforts to reduce the effect of climate change. Its motto is "Stop Talking, Start Planting". In 2011, it reached a goal of planting a million trees.
The climate movement is a global social movement focused on pressuring governments and industry to take action addressing the causes and impacts of climate change. Environmental non-profit organizations have engaged in significant climate activism since the late 1980s and early 1990s, as they sought to influence the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Climate activism has become increasingly prominent over time, gaining significant momentum during the 2009 Copenhagen Summit and particularly following the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2016.
Tim Gee is the general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation, the international organisation of Quakers worldwide. He is also a writer and faith-based activist in the United Kingdom, who popularised the concept of counterpower, and has written about pacifism and the Occupy movement.
Fossil fuel divestment or fossil fuel divestment and investment in climate solutions is an attempt to reduce climate change by exerting social, political, and economic pressure for the institutional divestment of assets including stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments connected to companies involved in extracting fossil fuels.
Aytzim, formerly the Green Zionist Alliance (GZA), is a New York–based Jewish environmental organization that is a U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity. A grassroots all-volunteer organization, Aytzim is active in the United States, Canada and Israel. The organization is a former member of the American Zionist Movement and has worked in partnership with Ameinu, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), Hazon, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Interfaith Oceans, GreenFaith, Mercaz/Masorti, the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care, and the Jewish National Fund (JNF)—although Aytzim has long criticized JNF for not prioritizing sustainability and environmental justice in its actions. Aytzim's work at the nexus of Judaism, environmentalism and Zionism has courted controversy from both Jewish and non-Jewish groups.
Carla Suzanne Denyer is a British politician who has served as co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales alongside Adrian Ramsay since 2021 and as the Member of Parliament for Bristol Central since 2024.
Mikaela Loach is a British climate justice activist, author, and former medical student.