| Type | Limited company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1969 as 'Third World First' |
| Location | Oxford, UK |
| Area served | UK |
| Focus | Student activism, Poverty, Human Rights and Environmentalism |
| Method | Lobbying, protest, direct action |
| Revenue | £380,000 Pound Sterling (2010-11) |
| Volunteers | 20,000+ members of their primary mailing list |
| Motto | Student action on World Poverty, Human Rights and the Environment. |
| Website | peopleandplanet.org |
People & Planet is a network of student campaign groups in the UK. It claims to be "the largest student campaigning organization in the country campaigning to alleviate world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment."
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As of 2009 there were 60 university groups and 75 Sixth Form/College groups in the People & Planet Network,[1] and over 20,000 people on its e-supporter mailing list.
The Support Office provides training and resources to the groups. Based in Oxford, the office has a budget of around £560,000 for 2007-8. This is very low when compared to organizations with a similar support base and remit (such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and the Stop AIDS Campaign). People & Planet has struggled with funding in recent years, relying primarily on governmental grants, trusts and foundations for support. People & Planet has a Fundraising and Activist Network called the FAN Club, allowing members to make regular monthly donations that provide invaluable unrestricted income to support the organization's work.
People & Planet groups are completely autonomous and there is no formal membership system. Decisions on the future of the network and the work of the Support Office are made by a Management Committee (the majority of whose members are elected students) and at the annual Forum event.
Some groups, while being part of the People & Planet network, operate without being called 'People & Planet'.
Annual events include Shared Planet - a student campaigning conference (as of 2006, the largest of its kind in the UK), The Forum - the annual decision making conference where the Management Committee are appointed and new campaigns elected, and The Summer Gathering - a training event which prepares the key activists in People & Planet groups for the academic year ahead.
People & Planet's current campaign areas are Climate Change and Corporate Power.
In June 2007 People & Planet published the UK's first university league table to be based on environmental impact, with Leeds Metropolitan University coming out top.[2] .[3]
People & Planet's Green League was first created as a way of driving forward the Higher Education sector's lack of environmental management and poor performance by exposing inaction and celebrating those universities leading the way. It initially scored UK universities on four key institutional factors needed to drive forward significant and sustained improvement in environmental performance, as highlighted by the Going Green report.[4] These criteria are:
The Green League is widely credited with shifting the UK's Higher Education sector towards improved environmental management and performance. The last People & Planet Green League 2009, published on 18 June 2009,[5] showed that 95% of all universities now have publicly-available environmental policies, whilst 85 institutions employed full-time environmental management staff compared with 70 the previous year.
Since the first Green League in 2007, People & Planet has widened the criteria to include measures of actual environmental performance based on Estates Management Statistics data collected by the Higher Education Funding Council for England on behalf of all UK funding councils, as well as strengthening the 'Management & Policy' criteria which measure a university's commitment and approach to improving sustainability, managing environmental performance and minimizing impacts on climate change.
People & Planet's Green League has been published annually in the Times Higher Education since 2007 as a cover story see for example Green League 2009. The Green League 2010 will be published on 17 June 2010. The Green League ranking also now appears in The Independent's A-Z guide to universities.
The Green League won "Best Campaign" at the 2007 British Environment and Media Awards[6]
In 2007 and 2008 People & Planet groups have also campaigned regularly outside branches of the high-street retailer Topshop in an attempt to raise awareness of Topshop's poor worker's rights record.
People & Planet co-published a report, along with several other pressure groups, detailing the RBS’ investments into oil and gas extraction. The report claims that RBS are one of the world’s primary financers of oil and gas extraction projects and outlines case studies of RBS funded projects in environmentally and politically sensitive regions where larger amounts of financing is required.[7]
People & Planet have called on RBS (who owns Natwest, the UK’s largest student bank) to shift their investments from fossil fuel extraction to renewable energy projects. Campaigning done by People & Planet groups has caused several students' unions (many which bank with Natwest) to threaten RBS with a boycott.[8][9][10] The NUS has also expressed concern.[11]
People & Planet are taking the government to court over its bailout of RBS.[12]
The organization was founded in 1969 as Third World First by a group of students, supported by NGOs including Oxfam.
Third World First was instrumental in setting up the magazine, The Internationalist which was later reincarnated as the now popular activist-magazine, The New Internationalist.
-Joel, Lord Joffe, CBE, Chair of Oxfam, 1999.
-George Monbiot, Guardian columnist, writer and environmentalist, 2007