People & Planet (P&P) 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.
P&P 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 2008
Our award-winning Green League demonstrated a remarkable improvement in the environmental management and performance of the UK’s universities. The combination of student campaigning and the publication of last year’s Green League has clearly shaken up the sector.
We celebrated the achievements of our five year Treat AIDS Now campaign which:
- Persuaded the UK government to lead an international commitment to provide treatment for all by 2010 — millions more now receive treatment
- Supported countries’ rights to access affordable treatment for their people — last year we helped 8,000 more people in Thailand get treatment, and in July 2008 the first steps were taken toward setting up a new international mechanism to bring down the cost of essential medicines.
- Increased the international funding for HIV/AIDS
In 2007
The Best Campaign Award for the Green League
- People & Planet won the Best Campaign award at the British Environment and Media Awards 2007, confirming our position as one of the premier campaigning groups in the country. The award was given for The Green League, which ranked UK universities by environmental performance.
Students protest outside Abbott’s UK headquarters
Image © Sarah Waldron
Hilary Benn at the meeting in Leeds
P&Pers create a real-life version of the new Action card
Image © Mika Minio-Paluello
Swansea P&P ready for Go Green action
At the start of the year the Thai government’s plans to make urgently needed HIV/AIDS drugs affordable was met with attacks from pharmaceutical companies and the US government. Warning that this pressure might deter other countries from putting public health before corporate profits, People & Planet urged the Government to support Thailand. In March student campaigners took part in the Stop AIDS Day of Action, where they met Secretary of State for International Development, Hilary Benn, to hand-in 10,000 action cards.
This event was the culmination of a year of relentless lobbying efforts from student campaigners, who have been collecting action cards and persuading MPs to sign EDMs, table parliamentary questions, and write to Ministers in support of the campaign. DFID reported that as well as the 10,000 action cards collected, over 400 MPs had written to the government about the campaign.
In case the government were in any doubt about the importance of the issue, student campaigners joined a Global Day of Action to demand that Abbott Laboratories stop its bullying behaviour and ask the UK to speak out for Thailand’s rights.
Finally, on 22 May, DFID wrote to People & Planet with an explicit statement of support for Thailand’s use of compulsory licensing. People & Planet’s campaigning was instrumental in securing the UK government’s support for Thailand. As a result 8,000 more people in Thailand will now receive life-saving treatment, and the move has also led to a significant drop in drug prices for other developing countries. It is also a hugely important reaffirmation of the right of countries to put their public health needs ahead of corporate profits.
In Fairtrade Fortnight, People & Planet organised a series of coordinated protests at Primark stores across the country to highlight the impact of clothing retailers’ purchasing practices on working conditions in their supply chains and calling on Primark to use its membership of the Ethical Trading Initiative for active change, rather than as a cosmetic exercise.
P&P’s Primark campaign reached the attention of the board of Associated British Foods, (Primark’s parent company). In November 2007 they wrote to People & Planet to say that “as a direct result of [People & Planet’s] suggestion to make a greater public commitment and to show greater transparency” it would be making their ethical trade strategy publicly available.
19 universities and colleges were awarded Fairtrade status, bringing the total to 59.
As part of our Ditch Dirty Development campaign to end the use of development aid for oil projects, P&P students twice met with government ministers to lobby them directly. Around the country, P&P groups met with local MPs, asking them to support the campaign. Many MPs signed an Early Day Motion to support the campaign, and one MP agreed to ask for an Adjournment Debate to raise the issue in Parliament.
Both the major opposition parties published reports supporting our campaign demands to end perverse subsidies for fossil fuel projects, and massively increase support for renewable energy.
In March, P&P co-published a report with PLATFORM, exposing the Royal Bank of Scotland’s massive involvement in the oil and gas industry. At Shared Planet, RBS was added to the targets of the Ditch Dirty Development campaign, and students took part in a highly visual stunt outside a local branch of the bank.
P&P published the Green League, the first ever league table comparing the environmental performance of UK universities. The Green League attracted attention within the sector and without, with more than 50 websites and news stories worldwide covering the story.
P&P groups made good progress in improving the environmental impacts of their own institutions, with improvements to recycling facilities at Birmingham Uni, Essex Uni, SOAS and UCLan, new environmental audits and reports for Coventry and Derby Unis and Imperial College, Roehampton P&P getting dedication to a new building project being carbon neutral, Swansea working towards ISO 14001 (an environmental management standard), and Manchester Metropolitan P&P convincing their university to appoint an environmental manager.
P&P extended the Go Green campaign to include schools, sixth forms and FE colleges. The new materials focus on students conducting carbon audits of their institutions, and ties in with the government’s National Framework for Sustainable Schools by focusing on specific areas for carbon reductions.
In 2006
Carnival of Climate Chaos
Image © Charlie Harvey
P&P Summer Gathering
Image © John Kentish
Anti-retroviral Viread aka Rowan from LSE P&P gets lecture attendees to sign Treat AIDS Now action cards
The 2,000 people on our Carnival of Climate Chaos joined 25,000 others in Trafalgar Square to call for immediate action on climate change.
We relaunched our Treat AIDS Now campaign at Shared Planet. The campaign demands that the UK government take the action needed to keep its promise of universal access to AIDS treatment by 2010.
P&P groups lobbied dozens of MPs to demand a Climate Bill, which the Government then introduced in the Queen’s Speech.
We started the P&P FAN Club. By giving at least £2 a month, FAN Club members help P&P to campaign effectively and independently on world poverty, human rights and the environment.
At Shared Planet, we launched our new climate campaign, Ditch Dirty Development . It demands an end to the scandal of spending development aid to support the climate changing oil industry.
37 P&P sixth form groups got Fairtrade products stocked in their schools. With P&P’s help, the number of schools and universities achieving Fairtrade status rose to over 40 by the end of 2006.
We redesigned peopleandplanet.org to make it easier to navigate, more dynamic and interactive, and simpler to use.
P&P groups including Cardiff, UCLan, Belper School, and Swansea ran our Go Green campaign, to reduce the environmental impact of their schools and universities.
Hannah Smith, a sixth form P&Per, met Tony Blair and handed in the 1,537 I Count pledge cards collected by the P&P network.
On World AIDS Day, P&P groups across the country ran campaign events, calling for political action to Treat AIDS Now. They collected thousands of petitions, and lobbied their local MPs, asking them to support our campaign.
Oxford University P&P launched a student-run web forum, and produced a pamphlet promoting democracy and radical discussion in P&P.
King Edward VI school P&P group, led by pupil Ben West, organised a whole week of activities on poverty, human rights and the environment at their school.
Our student network set the agenda for The Forum for the first time. P&Pers made thirteen proposals and our Management Committee decided the final agenda.
We launched our sixth form climate change workshop.
In 2005
Evening entertainment at the Summer Gathering 2005
Image © (c) Rich Lott.
Photo from G8 Summer Gathering 2005, Scotland
The G8 came to Scotland - P&P were there to meet them with our Summer Festival, which included key note speakers, skills workshops and campaign actions:
- Intensive campaigning before and during the G8 summit led to a major success for our AIDS campaign as the G8 committed to achieving universal access to treatment by 2010.
- 250 students paid a visit to Grangemouth oil refinery with Friends of the Earth Scotland. In the company of eight G8 ‘mermen’, a giant inflatable dinosaur, and a variety of sea creatures, we had a beach-party as the oil refinery sank beneath blue fabric waves. Grangemouth was chosen because it contains four of Scotland’s top ten carbon dioxide emitters, yet ironically is at sea-level, leaving it vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
- Numerous workshops, speaker sessions and fire-side conversations focused on the fundamental injustices in the structure of the international system. We considered the importance of trade as a MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY demand, and how the value of aid and debt relief is undermined by conditions which force trade liberalisation and prioritise the interests of Western corporations over the interests of the poor. Although the G8 made no new trade commitments we continue to campaign for a change in the rules to help poor people and protect the environment.
- Read more about the People & Planet Summer Festival.
People & Planet and the TJM travelled to Downing Street to hand in the 750,000 votes for Trade Justice that had been collected throughout the year.
Our Go Green campaign continued to build momentum when LSE became the latest university to Go Green. 29 groups are continuing to campaign on their campuses. Read about their exploits in the Go Green news section.
Tony Blair: the world is watching you! On board the World AIDS Day bus 2005
People & Planet and the Stop AIDS Coalition went to London to meet over 70 MPs with the message ‘the world is watching, AIDS treatment for all by 2010’. Read about their exploits. People & Planet groups all over the country marked World AIDS Day with campaigning activities and by raising money to help fight AIDS.
A new coalition, Stop Climate Chaos, was launched to generate mass public support to stop climate change. People & Planet had worked for several years to create the coalition. As the only founder with an international development remit, P&P were instrumental in ensuring that Stop Climate Chaos considered the impact of climate change in the developing world.
In 2004
- The government and EU conceded to the demands of our Defend Education - Stop GATS campaign by deciding not to include higher education in the profit-driven free trade treaty.
- After receiving hundreds of messages from us, DFiD agreed with us and said that the UK should “take steps at an international level” to increase access to AIDS medicines.
- Go Green, the campaign to make our universities sustainable, saw its first success after only six months of campaigning as Nottingham University employed a full-time environmental manager.
In 2003
- Our Green Electricity Campaign was wound up and replaced with Go Green. The Green Electricity campaign 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.
- After intensive campaigning by the local P&P group, Oxford Brookes became the first Fairtrade accredited university in the world.
- Esso cancelled their university recruitment tour after two years of P&P campaigning.
And before that
In 2002, we helped organise and took part in the second Stop Esso day - 4,000 people protested about the influence Exxon/Mobil was exerting to prevent the US from signing up to the Kyoto Protocol.
In 2001, we worked in coalition with Oxfam and Amnesty International to convince the government to introduce the first new arms export controls since 1939.
In 2000, over £20 billion of debt cancellation was agreed at international summits in response to the demands of the Jubilee 2000 campaign coalition. Students in the People & Planet network delivered petitions with 80,000 signatures to the government - the second-largest total generated by any organisation.
In 1999, our Ethics for USS campaign persuaded the £20 billion lecturers’ pension fund to adopt a socially responsible investment policy.
In 1998, we became part of the Jubilee 2000 coalition to cancel the debts of the worlds poorest nations.
In 1997, we were part of the campaign that persuaded seven supermarket chains to adopt ethical policies.
In 1996, students forced Pepsi to end its support for Burma’s brutal military dictatorship.
For more details about People & Planet’s activities please visit our news pages.
Congratulations to all of the students in the network for making a real change. Keep on campaigning!