People & Planet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

People & Planet, often abbreviated to P&P, is a student-led campaigning organisation in the UK. It campaigns to alleviate world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment.

The network consists of over 55 university and college groups, more than 150 sixth form groups, individual campaigners and a support office located in Oxford. The organisation was originally founded in 1969 as Third World First by a group of students, supported by non-governmental organizations including Oxfam. People & Planet has been the driving force behind the 'Fairtrade University' movement in the UK, illustrating the ethos of "act locally, think globally".

Lord Joel Joffe CBE, then Chair of Oxfam, said of the organisation in 1999, “Over the last three years People & Planet has become an extraordinary organisation which attracts student supporters on a scale unmatched within the UK charity and campaign sector. More than any other youth organisation it is encouraging the emerging generation to see themselves as global citizens with a responsibility for taking action on global problems of poverty and the environment.”

Major successes of the network have included:

The Fairtrade campaign has created 28 Fairtrade Universities and 4 Fairtrade Schools. This has significantly increased the total amount of Fairtrade products sold in the UK, with a knock-on impact on the lives of producers in the global South.

The Green Electricity campaign which resulted in a twenty fold increase in the number of universities buying renewable electricity - saving 275,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide being released every year.

Go Green, which developed from the Green Electricity campaign, has succeeded in improving the broad environmental performance of many universities, such as the University of Nottingham, through requiring the recruitment of environmental management staff.

The Ethics for USS (the University Superannuation Scheme) campaign persuaded the £20 billion lecturers’ pension fund to adopt a socially responsible investment policy.

Some groups, while being part of the People & Planet network and having the full services of the support office in Oxford, operate without being called 'People & Planet'.

People & Planet are one of the first charities to benefit from the "Monday" Lottery that was launched on the 8th May 2005, with the organisation receiving a percentage of ticket sales.