Sharing practices on diversity and inclusion: Learning from The RACE Report 2022 participants

The Racial Action for the Climate Emergency (RACE) Report is a campaign focusing on diversity and inclusion in environment, conservation, climate and sustainability charities and funders. By increasing transparency through data reporting on representation in this sector, The RACE Report aims to create the impetus to go further and faster on diversity and inclusion.

Launched in 2022, the initiative aims to diversify racial representation, and hold organisations accountable for their efforts to create safe and diverse workplaces. In our first year we had over 150 sign-ups to The RACE Report and 94 organisations submitted their data.

We spoke to a few organisations who participated in The RACE Report 2022 to share their thoughts and opinions on engagement with the project. They also shared their current and planned practices and approaches on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI).

We hope these types of conversation will help to enable organisations to learn from each other for making progress on EDI. Also, to encourage others to take their own action, especially creating polices and strategies for advancing diversity and inclusion.

Within the feedback, there were some consistent themes that came out from all in discussing EDI, here are few:

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Outcomes of being part of The RACE Report

Participants said that being part of the RACE Report has provided a framework for them to have a focused approach to EDI, keeping it as a priority. This appears to enable organisations to speed up action on diversity and inclusion, perhaps due to the annual reporting encouraging the need to demonstrate progress.

This is having direct positive impact on employees as stated by one organisation from 2022:

”One positive outcome was employee engagement, derived from the collective enthusiasm of our staff about us taking part in the RACE Report”.

The RACE Report has already gained traction from the release of our 2022 findings report, which has resulted in new organisations sign up to participate in 2023.

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EDI actions for positive change

Participants have proved that they are attempting to take positive steps for EDI through their current practices and future plans. The social, economic and political facets of EDI can be improved in a variety of ways, which can lead to improvements in an organisation's funding and structure as well as enhancing well-being. CIPD describe the impact and potential of a strategic approach to EDI as:

‍“an effective EDI strategy goes beyond legal compliance and seeks to take an intersectional approach adding value to an organisation, contributing to the well-being and equality of outcomes and impact on all employees.”‍

Here are a few examples of EDI practices shared by The RACE Report 2022 participants:

• Forming a working group that comprises of employees from different divisions, and a range of different levels of seniority.
• Practices that monitoring aspects of EDI such as race equity pay gap data and tracking its progress.
• Positive recruitment approaches that make it more inclusive e.g. eliminating prior governance experience as a criteria and focusing on lived experience, paying for recruitment through specialist agencies & identifying new partners for EDI techniques.
• Creating an internal EDI group of staff, allowing people a safe space to discuss their issues and develop action plans.
• Taking part in a programmes that endorse inclusive recruitment such as ‘Race for Nature's Recovery Kickstarter scheme’ and ‘New2Nature’.
• Using ‘Wildlife and Countryside Link Road map’ to develop strategy within our organisation.
• Enrolling staff in training programmes, for example the CIPD course in People Management.
• Putting more resource and funding towards EDI work.
• Boosting diversity and representation in communications and media outputs.

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Barriers to progressing EDI

Priorities, funding and resource capacity were common barriers shared by participants. In various instances, EDI does not seem to be a top priority as it balanced against other agendas. Whilst this is fully understood, unless EDI is made a priority, we will struggle to deliver on climate justice.

Sign-up to take part in The RACE Report 2023 here.

Please get in touch with any queries