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Let's be friendsPeople & Planet was originally called Third World First. It was set up in 1969 to raise money for overseas aid. It didn’t take long for us to realise that raising awareness and campaigning are essential in achieving widespread long term change, and we shifted our focus to reflect that.
People & Planet now works to educate and empower students to take effective action on the root causes of social and environmental injustice. Working together democratically, our student network and our support office have had many successes, including:
In 2009
Fruit of the Loom/Russell agree to reopen Honduran factory after our peaceful campaigning.
1,200 Honduran garment workers got their jobs back after an historic victory for international student campaigning, part of People & Planet’s Redress Education campaign. It has shown that students can fight back against exploitation and the race to the bottom, and secured income for 1,200 poor families.
The People & Planet Green League entered its third year and kept up the pressure on universities to improve their environmental performance and policies. Since it began, we have seen a 54% increase in universities employing full time environmental managers. Previous Government reports had failed to generate action but we have succeeded in bringing about the creation and publication of environmental policies in all but seven of the UK’s universities.
We took the government to court over RBS’s carbon-intensive investments such as tar sands. The majority of RBS is now owned by the public and we argued that the government should be using its shareholding to invest in a low-carbon future not dirty fossil fuels. The High Court ruled that the Treasury can ignore climate change and human rights but the fight is not over, at the time of writing (December 2009) we are preparing our appeal case. We have a positive vision to transform RBS into the Royal Bank of Sustainability. Check out the People & Planet Ditch Dirty Development campaign homepage for the latest developments.
P&P intern, Alys, leads the Wave flashdance
Image © Lucy Hiscox
Students flooded the streets of London on the biggest ever climate change march: The Wave, this colourful creative action included People & Planet’s huge wave machine and our ever-popular flash dance. Up to 50,000 people came to London, dressed in blue to show the flood of support for strong leadership on climate change at Copenhagen.
Over the years, People & Planet has also:
Transformed environmental performance across the higher education sector through our Go Green campaigning, including the award winning Green League.
Persuaded the UK government to lead an international commitment to provide HIV/AIDS treatment for all by 2010 — millions more now receive treatment.
Campaigned for Fairtrade in universities, schools and colleges. Over 100 universities, and 106 secondary schools have now achieved Fairtrade status.
Secured $88bn debt cancellation for the world’s poor, by playing a key roll in the Jubilee 2000 campaign.
Persuaded a £20 billion lecturers’ pension fund to adopt a socially responsible investment policy.
Forced Pepsi out of Burma, ending their financial support for the military junta and receiving thanks from Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in exile.
See what People & Planet achieved in 2008
For more details about People & Planet’s activities please visit our news pages.
Thank you
Congratulations to the students in the network, our financial supporters in our FAN Club, and our funders for making a real change. Let’s keep on campaigning!
