Racial reporting initiative launches to address lack of diversity in UK environmental charities
Melanie May | 5 April 2022 | News
The new initiative has seen over 30 charities and funders pledge to take part so far.
The RACE Report will ask the UK’s environmental and green charities to report on the racial diversity of their workforce each year, and comes as a response to new data from Students Organising for Sustainability UK (SOS-UK).
The data reveals that 4.8% of environment professionals identify as Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic, compared with a 12.6% average across all professions, while some roles in the environmental sector can be classified as being 100% white. It also shows that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals are underrepresented in ‘feeder subjects’ for environmental careers, accounting for 6% of those studying biodiversity conservation compared with a 26% average across all higher education subjects.
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Going forward, the annual data reported will be used to establish best practice on racial equity in the sector and help improve these metrics.
The RACE Report (Racial Action for the Climate Emergency), is being led by a partnership comprising Nature Youth Connection and Education, Hindu Climate Action, South Asians for Sustainability and SOS-UK, and seeks to replicate Green 2.0, an annual transparency report of staff diversity in the top 40 environmental not-for-profits and environmental foundations in the USA.
The RACE Report willestablish a standardised data collection methodology for the UK’s environmental charities, and their funders, and they will be asked to assess and report on the racial diversity of their workforce and trustees each year. The organisers hope that it will bring more transparency to the sector, enable peer learning, and boost efforts to make the charities more inclusive and diverse.
Manu Maunganidze, from the RACE Report team, said:
“The latest evidence for representation in the environment sector is, at best, sobering. According to the new data the sector continues to have less than 5% of its workforce who come from minority backgrounds. This suggests there has been a very modest improvement since the last time we looked at this data in 2017, but few would say it’s anywhere near good enough. At the current rate, it would take the sector over 20 years to get to a point of representation matching the reality of racial diversity of other professions.
“We urgently need transparency on the racial diversity of individual organisations’ trustee boards and staff teams, and we plan to deliver that through the RACE Report. Without comparative data and evidence, the improvements will continue to be incremental and the sector and its funders will continue to fall behind in their stated aims to fight for social and environmental justice.”
The charities and funders that have already pledged to take part include 2050 Climate Group, Action for Conservation, Ashden, British Trust for Ornithology, ClientEarth, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Feedback, Global Action Plan, Gower Street, Greenpeace, Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment, The Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust and The Zoological Society of London. The organisers hope that at least 100 charities and trusts will submit data in the first year.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.