Yearly Archives: 2020

9th March 2020

Developing a 10 year Transition Plan for Farming

In Partnership with RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission

Farming is braced for a decade of change. With a general election just over, and Brexit getting ever closer, the future remains challenging and uncertain for UK farmers facing a new trading environment and an impending transition away from Common Agricultural Policy rules and payments. But we know an even more significant transition is coming, which is the change needed to mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency, and to restore wildlife and natural resources. Many farmers are already leading in responding to the challenges, but many others feel locked in to the current system through long term investments, circumstances and skills gaps.

We need a plan so that farmers can be confident of their future and plan for change. How can we enable farmers to take the driving seat in designing and leading the transition? What is the new financial deal for farmers that supports their wellbeing and ability to adapt? How much food will we need to produce and how do we ensure its affordability? What scenarios are likely to emerge and what support needs to be in place to accommodate them?

The actions we take together now will be vital in us avoiding the worst consequences of the climate emergency and halting the loss of wildlife we are seeing, as well as ensuring everyone has access to healthy affordable food produced in a way that enables us to meet the UK’s global obligations to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement.

Our Consultation built on the two year inquiry and recommendations already developed with cross sector support as part of the RSA Food, Farming and Countryside Commission and brought together a range of leaders, experts and forward looking practitioners from within the agricultural sector and beyond.

3rd March 2020

Carers and Employment

In Partnership with Carers UK

The impact of unpaid caring on the everyday life of working age people is a critical and growing issue in society. As retirement age rises, people live for longer, and social care options are reduced, many of us may find ourselves providing unpaid care for a family member or friend during our working lives. This can have severe consequences, including a struggle to balance work with caring commitments, which may lead to stress-induced health problems and ultimately voluntary or involuntary loss of employment.
Caring also impacts employers and the state through loss of skilled workers and associated revenue, as well as costs associated with recruitment and unplanned absences. Through advocacy by Carers UK and Employers for Carers, policymakers and employers have begun to implement change to improve carers’ rights and available support in the workplace but more needs to be done.
16th January 2020

Climate Change among the Religions: A Forum for Engagement

In Partnership with Coexist House, the Lincoln Theological Institute (The University of Manchester) and the Reckitt Trust

What is the Forum trying to do? Informed by expertise on climate change, its aim was to create an event of mutual learning between and among religious traditions, and thereby inspire fresh action by religious communities. In other words, their aim was to support fresh thinking and action in the context of anthropogenic climate change at all levels in religious institutions.

In support of this aim, the forum had three objectives:

    1. To explore how religious traditions have interacted practically with and learned theoretically about climate change,  in order to evaluate difficulties that religious traditions have in engaging with climate change.
    2. To assess issues that inhibit action by religious communities in favour of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
    3. To devise practical strategies to address these issues.

To meet these objectives the Forum invited expert representatives from

  1. a range of religious traditions,
  2. scientific expertise,
  3. policy and institutional leadership.

The Forum had four outcomes:

  1. The building of confidence within and between religious traditions in the wisdom of aspects of their thought and life to make a contribution to change—personal, communal, social and global—in the context of climate change.
  2. Through a process of mutual exchange, to identify more clearly obstacles to religious engagement with climate change.
  3. To equip key change makers to generate change in their institutions.
  4. To provide an educational resource/legacy to support further processes of change.

The Forum is not interested in a parade of the ecological credentials of religious traditions. Such work has already been undertaken. Nor is the Forum concerned to provide an inventory of the pro-ecological activities of religious traditions—although this work is very helpful and the Forum seeks to enhance such work.

Instead, the Forum wanted to identify and address key questions that both support and inhibit engagement by religious traditions with climate change and our climate emergency. For example, do religious traditions have novel ways of supporting intergenerational solidarity? To what extent should religious adherents engage in political processes beyond voting and advocacy—especially acts of witness, lament, and even Non-Violent Direct Action? In the light of Extinction Rebellion, can disruptive action be affirmed? Religious traditions have regulations about food and diet: given the ecological costs of food production, are there religious obstacles to changes in diets but also religious resources for thinking differently about food production? Are religious traditions so strongly invested in the distinctiveness of the human that acknowledging the value of the non-human is difficult? Are there deep commitments in religious traditions that undermine the sense that the earth is “home”?

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