Diverse Sustainability Initiative aims to provide mentorship and support to existing workers from diverse backgrounds while making environmental professions more accessible to minority groups
The Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment (IEMA) has unveiled a new scheme that aims to boost the environment and sustainability sector's chronically low levels of racial diversity.
The Woodland Trust, Green Alliance, the Institute for Water, and the RSPB are among the green groups that have joined the Diverse Sustainability Initiative, which aims to support professionals already working in the industry from diverse backgrounds while also ensuring the environment and climate sector is accessible to underrepresented groups.
Minorities make up nearly 20 per cent of the UK's overall workforce, but just three per cent of the environment and sustainability sector. A Policy Exchange survey from 2017 revealed the sector is one of the least racially diverse in the UK, second only to farming, with 97 per cent of all staff identifying as 'white British'.
IMEA chief executive officer Sarah Mukherjee will head up the initiative, which asks all signatories to make a public commitment to improve diversity within their organisation and sector, report on their progress, and take active steps to enhance diversity across the sector.
Mukherjee said she was "shocked and saddened" by accounts of racial inequality in the sector and urged organsations and groups to sign up to the initiative. "As a British Asian, speaking with diverse people in the sector, I am shocked and saddened by some of the stories I have heard of racial inequality within the environment and sustainability profession," she said. "We have a commitment to be far more representative of this country and I urge people to sign up and pledge their commitment to joining us in supporting and encouraging new diverse professionals, wherever they are in their career."
RSPB chief executive Beccy Speight emphasised that boosting diversity was critical to the group's mission to tackle the nature and climate crises. "We're very clear that we need to take concerted action to improve the diversity of the RSPB if we are going to tackle the scale of the nature and climate emergency and deliver our vision of a world where everyone can live in harmony with a world richer in nature," she said. "Addressing the issue as a sector and holding each other to account on progress makes complete sense as a way to drive the action required."
The Diverse Sustainability Initiative will initially focus on racial diversity but will expand to focus on providing support to LGBTQ+ individuals, IEMA said.
The IEMA, which represents almost 17,000 sustainability professionals in 116 countries, said it was keen to use the platform offered by forthcoming COP26 Climate Summit to amplify marginalised voices in the profession.