With collaboration from partners ranging from Bat Conservation to the RSPB, members of the DSI pledged to educate, reform, and encourage the next generation of diverse professionals to join the environment profession. By signing up, organisations made a public commitment to improve diversity within their industries, be accountable and make a positive difference to bring about change.

Acknowledging that the sustainability and environment sector has a problem with lack of diversity is only the first step in a long journey to rectifying the issue.

A recent study of diversity across the UK economy surveyed 202 occupations to find out which were the most and least diverse. The top 10 most diverse professions are many you would expect – doctors, dentists and pharmacists, those holding up our National Health Service – also chefs and restaurant workers. And, of course, at #1 – taxi drivers!

And yet the sustainability and environment sector languishes at number 201 out of 202.

This was the topic of a special episode of the ENDS Report’s Eco Chamber podcast, Access Denied: The environment sector’s problem with race.

Through the episode, ENDS Report’s James Agyepong-Parsons investigates why the environment sector remains one of the least diverse in the country and finds out what’s being done to implement change. He says:

“There are whole fields of study dedicated to employment practises and work discrimination in the UK. Ethnic penalty literature uses statistical analysis of survey data which shows that many ethnic minority groups in the UK have on average a lower probability of being employed and work on a lower quality job than the white British majority possessing the same qualifications.

“Discrimination literature has established from field experiments that ethnic minority applicants in the UK are less likely to receive a positive reply to their application than the white British majority.

“Within the conservation space, the Wildlife and Countryside Link, the largest environment and wildlife coalition in England, produced a route map to greater ethnic diversity, finding that overt and covert racism plagued the sector.”

The data paints a pretty bleak picture, not just for the environment and sustainability sector, but the UK as a whole. However, the issue seems especially dire within our sector. According to data collected from 58 environment and sustainability organisations by Racial Action for the Climate Emergency (RACE) for their 2023 RACE Report, only 6.6% of people working in the industry identified as People of Colour or other ethnically minoritised groups.^[1] This compares to the fact that 15% of the UK working population aged 16-24 are People of Colour (ONS Annual Population Survey 2023). 

So, why is the sector so lacking in diversity?

Historically, protected landscapes, and especially those with heritage status, have excluded communities of Colour and the working class, even those living within close proximity. So when plans are made to make these spaces more accessible – like those in the Glover Review which formed part of the Government's 25-year Plan for the Environment – special consideration is required to remove the barriers to participation that people from marginalised groups face, whether that’s racism, classism, or the physical inaccessibility of these spaces for people with disabilities.

It is perhaps little surprise then, that the only profession ranked lower that sustainability and environment sector for diversity is farming at 202^nd place out of 202 – so important as custodians of our natural landscapes.

In terms of job opportunities, it can often be that in order to obtain certain roles, a level of socioeconomic privilege is required to get a foot in the door. The requirement of voluntary experience for example is just one way in which people from less privileged backgrounds can be priced out of entry. And, even if you get to interview stage, prejudice and unconscious bias make securing job opportunities more challenging for People of Colour than their white counterparts.

Many organisations misunderstand this issue of diversity – partly due to a lack of lived experience from even the most well-meaning senior leadership figures – as one that can be solved by saying the right things and making promises of committing to being a ‘welcoming environment for all’.

The small proportion of People of Colour working within the sector can testify to the challenges of being a minority voice within a demographic that can have different experiences, perspectives and values. But how do we create greater diversity in the sector right now? How can we ensure equality of opportunity right at the very start of career journeys? How can our organisations help make information about sustainability careers more accessible for new audiences? How can we make entry-level opportunities fairer, removing financial, social, and cultural barriers?

These are all questions that are essential to the future of the sector. Lack of diversity is a serious risk to the sustainability and resilience of the sector, as without the contributions of these communities, we can’t truly reflect the needs of modern Britain in solving these complex challenges facing our environment.

When the DSI was set up, the IEMA Board understood that in order to build resilience, we needed to highlight and open up opportunities for people to get involved in the sector. We asked organisations to sign up and commit to do something about diversity, with the understanding that action was necessary to being part of the initiative.

We wanted to move the industry away from the idea that EDI initiatives were a shield from criticism, or a token gesture for organisations to signal their good intentions, without backing them up with actions.

As James points out in the podcast episode, at its peak in 2021, there were 65 partners of IEMA’s Diverse Sustainability Initiative. This number now stands at 43 organisations, although not all organisations left the initiative because of inaction – some brought in their own diversity officers and EDI support and started to do the work internally.

If you’re a CEO of an organisation and you don’t have the lived experience of being from a marginalised background, EDI can only be a priority if you make it one. Being a good ally is one of the most important things that senior leaders can learn, and if EDI isn’t high on your agenda, very little can be done to change things.

This month, a webinar entitled Building a fairer greener future: insights for a just transition will outline how businesses can deliver a fair transition to a greener future, as well as how to engage with diverse stakeholders, bringing communities together and driving inclusive action.

EDI is a crucial component to discussions about a just transition – greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone, creating decent work opportunities and leaving no one behind.

With green technologies and renewable energy source increasing across the UK, it’s vital that everybody is given the opportunity to develop green skills and play their part.

Access Denied brings together people from various aspects of sustainability and environmentalism, to investigate what lies behind the sector’s problem with race and the implications for the environmental profession and its future. Listen to the podcast to hear from:

• Manu Maunganidze, the co-director of Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK) and lead author of the sector’s landmark RACE Report.

• Nadia Shaikh, Right to Roam campaigner and Raven Network organiser.

• Sarah Mukherjee, head of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment.

• Edel McGurk, Natural England’s regional director for the south-east and senior champion for the regulator’s ethnicity and race network.

Listen to the episode here.

^[1] Diversity data report | The RACE Report