Achievements: A Brief History of People & Planet
People & 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 2012
Worcester Go Green
No to tar sands
Chester students say ‘Buy Right’
Image © Chris Honeywell, Working Images, 2012
The largest week of student action on climate change ever held - Go Green Week 2012 engaged over 140 universities, schools & colleges and over 20,000 staff and students.
Our Going Greener project to create Transition Universities has trained up and helped students at 12 universities to launch new Student Food Co-ops, or Scoops as they’re known on campus.
We persuaded the UK government to abstain from a key vote on the EU Fuel Quality Directive that would keep dirty tar sands oil out of Europe. Norman Baker was planning to vote no under intense pressure from Canadian lobbyists but over 1600 emails & creative actions from students helped to shift the government’s position. A huge win but we will be keeping the pressure up for a Yes vote in early 2013.
Over 500 students wrote to Universities Minister David Willetts calling for more action on climate change within the education sector from the “greenest government ever”
6 more universities joined the Worker Rights Consortium. Thanks to pressure from our activists, the number of universities with ethical procurement policies increased from 26% to over 70% in one year.
Over 100 students wrote to the Bangladeshi Prime Minister demanding justice for the murdered trade unionist, Aminul Islam.
We launched our campaign against adidas, where over 75 student officers, including NUS Vice President Dannie Grufferty, signed our pledge to picket, protest and boycott adidas. We will keep fighting until adidas pay their workers in Indonesia.
In 2011
Sheffield joins the WRC
NUS Services Limited, the purchasing arm of the National Union of Students, unanimously voted to join the Worker Rights Consortium. It set a precedent for the whole sector and was commended by students’ unions across the country.
Taking on Tarmageddon
The People & Planet Green League went mainstream with a new publication partnership with The Guardian newspaper. Our 2011 eco-ranking of 143 universities became front page news and created a Twitterstorm that helped spread the results to over 500,000 people. We also launched People & Planet’s first ever iPhone app to help students keep track of their universities environmental and ethical progress.
Our Going Greener campaign empowered students to set up projects and campaigns that saved over 1200 tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere - from student allotments to energy-saving projects and bike co-ops.
We took a group of 8 student activists accompanied by two People & Planet staff and a film crew to Canada for the Tarsands Youth Solidarity Exchange project with the Beaver Lake Cree Nation. Seeing the destruction caused by the tar sands industry firsthand has inspired both Cree and UK students to redouble their efforts to stop further tar sands oil extraction on their traditional lands. The project also resulted in a feature length documentary Taking on Tarmageddon which is now being screened across the country educating others about tar sands.
In 2010
133 unis took part in the 2010 Green League
Fairtrade cotton producers
Image © Fairtrade Foundation 2010
Tescos agrees to double its supply of Fairtrade cotton school uniforms after People & Planet lobbying. The Wear Fair campaign in schools and colleges claims its first major success in calling on all schools to change to Fairtrade cotton uniforms.
Students across the country also target Asda, for being the only major supermarket chain not to sell any Fairtrade cotton uniforms.
Honduran workers protest against Nike
Image © Team Sweat, 2010
Nike agree to pay $1.5 million legally mandated severance pay to Honduran workers after People & Planet joined the United Students Against Sweatshops campaign calling on Nike to ‘Just Pay It!.
People & Planet wrote a letter to Nike explaining that our network would decide by Skype call whether to run the campaign in three weeks. Within two weeks the campaign ended in all the workers demands being met.
Another UK 1st from People & Planet
In 2009
Student attacking Fruit of the Loom brand in 2009
Fruit of the Loom/Russell agree to reopen Honduran factory after ‘biggest student boycott since Apartheid’.
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 role 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!
