2009: Another amazing year for People & Planet

It was a year of twists, turns and amazing successes. Three new campaigns were launched. Thousands more people got involved and we found exciting new ways to work together as an incredible, powerful, inspirational network.

What a year. Support for People & Planet has skyrocketed in 2009; we now have groups at 120 universities, schools and colleges, with incredible levels of action. We created over 135 new volunteering opportunities. We also saw many more people supporting us with an affordable monthly donation and were motivated by the generous response to our funding appeal.

Here’s a short round up of what we have achieved together.

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.

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.

New Campaigns

Chosen by students at our democratic Forum event, we launched two exciting new campaigns in the theme of corporate power, and a new climate change campaign in 2009:

The brand new People & Planet Buy Right campaign - respecting human rights throughout university supply chains, has been unleashed. This campaign builds on the success of People & Planet’s Fairtrade Status campaign, and calls for a broadening of Fairtrade, ethical procurement and transparency throughout supply chains, from farm to factory.

The brand new People & Planet Wear Fair in schools and colleges campaign, has already won celebrity support from Stacey Dooley, who rose to fame after appearing in the BBC’s acclaimed documentary ‘Blood, sweat and t-shirts’. Young people don’t want their schools and colleges to be full of clothes that make poor producers suffer. The campaign will create a national movement in schools and colleges, calling on them to source clothing which will improve the lives of millions of cotton farmers.

The brand new People & Planet Going Greener campaign picks up where the Go Green campaign left off. It is about students and staff at universities coming together and cutting the carbon for themselves. Through a mixture of practical projects, creative awareness-raising, lobbying and community-building campaigns, students can help their universities make the transition to a low-carbon, lower-energy future.

Please support us in 2010

People & Planet is creating generation after generation of activists; giving people the support and conviction that they can make a difference. And tt’s not just while at school, college or university: we know that involvement with People & Planet broadens horizons and changes lives. If you already support us: thank you, your donation is generating action and changing our world for the better. If you don’t support us, please consider signing up with a monthly donation that fits your budget, from as little as £3.