How do we achieve transformation change?

Dear Friends of the Earth Board and Senior Management Team,

The following outlines some of the key messages and points expressed during a discussion about how Friends of the Earth needs to campaign and organise to achieve transformational change, at Basecamp 2015. For everyone’s ease, we’ve kept it short.

Fifteen of us were in the room, from staff, FOE groups, other networks and communities and the FOE Board. This documents represents the views expressed but doesn’t imply that there was consensus in the room on every point. We don’t expect a response on this, but share it with you for information, in the hope that it will be of some use informing future discussions on campaigning approaches and methodologies at a time when all ideas need to be heard.

Paraphrased version of the introduction by Jim from Barnet Friends of the Earth, who proposed the discussion

We have a planetary emergency. Our climate, land, soil, water and more are all reaching or going beyond their limits. We need to be more efficient and to consume less. And we need to create influence in the right ways to drive the structural and cultural changes required for a reversal of this emergency.

We know that people and organisations influence each other and can influence Government and we know that Governments can influence each other. We know that Governments act at the scale required only when influenced by people and organisations, but they are not currently feeling sufficient weight of pressure to force them to act at these levels.

Environmental issues were, at best, second division issues in the election and media coverage of climate change – one of the key planetary emergency issues – has peaked and is now in decline. This is because people know about climate change – it’s no longer news.

So we need to re-think how we operate and who we operate with to create the scale of influence needed with people and with decision-makers.

Here are some things we suggest Friends of the Earth needs to do to achieve this.

  • Focusing on places of power beyond Westminster

One option, recognising that Westminster is not only a hard place to influence at present, is to accept that it also doesn’t always have the necessary influence, or that it is not always necessary to focus there to create influence. In Fracking for example, we are focusing on Lancashire, where the impacts are directly to be felt and where people can influence through direct, local pressure on the council in a way that can influence national policy. In the Divestment movement, the focus is on influential institutions and their bank accounts. Influence can be had by focusing beyond Westminster directly, and influence can still be had within Westminster.

  • Focusing on solutions

People need solutions and inspiration, not just challenges and problems. We should try not to focus only on what we oppose but also and perhaps sometimes only, on what we propose. The fracking campaign in Balcombe is a powerful example, where the community both opposed the fracking and proposed and developed a renewable energy alternative.

  • Go to where other people are and speak in their language

There are millions of people out that that in some way, sympathise with the goals of the environment movement and Friends of the Earth. We do not always speak in ways that they can relate to or engage them in ways that they are familiar with. As George Marshall outlined powerfully, we need to speak to many more people in ways that resonate with them, not with us.

  • Connect single issues up with the bigger issue

We can inspire people to act by presenting a powerful vision that addresses the real, overarching challenges and opportunities of an environmentally sustainable and just world. Such a vision can get lost when we focus in only on single issues at a time. Campaigns need to be connected together by a bigger, more powerful vision.

  • Link the environment with the social even more

Environmental justice, climate justice, air quality, dirty energy, energy efficiency and beyond all connect directly with issues of social justice such as inequality, austerity, housing policy, health provision and beyond. As the Brick Lane Debates are trying to do, we need to better connect these issues together and enable the solutions to the challenges being presented by the current Government to address both environmental and social concerns together. Some issues – such as air pollution – cross-cut these different concerns powerfully and should be the focus of our campaigning in the future for that reason.

  • Understand the personal drivers we have to act

Much of what we present to the world in Friends of the Earth is task-based. It is about action, activity and outcome. We do not do enough to understand that real and lasting transformation comes from with and that change is not only achieved through a series of steps – tasks – but also through the experience of the journey as a whole. We need to enable people to decide to change, not just tell them to do so.

  • Diversify

We need to bring more people in to Friends of the Earth from more backgrounds. We need to enable the voices of those that are directly affected to be heard, not to speak on their behalf. That requires us to look and sound more open and enable people to come to us and organise with us in their own ways.

  • Broaden, and radicalise, our message and tactics

Some activists, such as those in the Brick Lane Debates, support Friends of the Earth but would argue that its actions, image and messages are not radical enough. To connect to peoples’ real issues and to present truthfully the scale of change that’s required, Friends of the Earth needs to sound bolder and more radical. It should also be willing to bear witness and join in with civil disobedience, amongst many other campaigning approaches.