Although improvements are visible, minorities groups are still woefully underrepresented in jobs and roles linked to the environment. We crunch the numbers.
Another year, another indictment of diversity in organisations working for a brighter – or at least less doom-y – future. The fourth annual RACE Report has been published today, and there are at least a few reasons to feel things are getting better.
Slowly.
First of all, more organisations submitted information than ever before – 137 across all aspects of sustainability and climate. Of these, 8 were newcomers, while 91 were filing data stretching back four years. In total, the analysis represents more than 28,000 people working in the sector.
Within the bodies that contributed, the representation for people of colour and other minorities identities had climbed from 6.2% in 2022 to 8.4% in 2025. This is significant, as it shows steps to improve inclusion and diversity in workplaces that are also consistently in their reporting on staff demographics are having an impact.
‘Not disclosed’ responses had also fallen sharply, down by almost 20% over the past three years, pointing to more transparency, openness, and comfort in being transparent and open. Unfortunately, though, representation within the climate and sustainability sectors remains way down compared with the overall British workforce. For all sectors, 17% of people in the UK in employment identify as Black, Asian, or Minority Ethnic. In the RACE Report, only 4.7% do.
However, there are some big differences between type and size of organisation. For example, bodies working for climate and climate justice causes are far more likely to have people of colour and minority staff members – with 16.3% representation compared with 3.5% for ‘other sustainability’ roles. Positions that involved identifying and securing grants also fared favourably, with 16.3% people of colour. Surprisingly, jobs involved in membership and representation came out as the lowest specialism, at just 3%.
Regionality also made a difference, with London – by far the most divers UK city – coming out on top in terms of diversity within the workforce. As did differences in gender, disability and age – for white staff members, 31% are male, 16% are aged between 55 and 64, and 14% report having some form of disability. Among people of colour 31% are male, 5% are between 55 and 64 years old, and 18% are disabled.
When looking at the prevalence of discrimination events, among ‘colleagues’ 1-in-10 staff who identify as a person of colour or other minority said they had witnessed or had first-hand experience of this. For white responses, this fell to just 5%. There were equally profound differences at management level, too, where 12% of minority-identifying senior staff had seen evidence of discrimination compared to 8% of white peers.
Looking at customers, clients and service users, the numbers are even more alarming – among people of colour, 22% had witnessed or experienced harassment. This figure fell to just 15% for their white counterparts. There are two likely explanations for this which are not mutually exclusive. Firstly, it’s possible that acts of discrimination often occur behind closed doors and in one-to-one situations or small groups. More disturbingly, there’s a strong possibility the study reveals big differences in how someone from a minority identity background looks at language or behaviour, and its implications in terms of race and ethnic disenfranchisement, and how a white person sees the same examples.
With this in mind, it stands to reason that with more people of colour and other minority identities on the payroll, and organisation should, over time, see a reduction in reported harassment and discrimination incidents. In turn, this would also lead to a potential increase the percentage of staff from these backgrounds. As such, it’s worth noting – especially in light of increasing scepticism towards equality, diversity and inclusion policies – that EDI initiatives did make a massive difference. In workplaces that had implemented between 26 and 30 such actions, an average 13.2% of staff were non-white. Where 20, or fewer, policies had been introduced, this slips to just 3.4%.
So there are some lessons to learn here, areas to feel concerned about, and contexts that need to be applied. At a time when climate and sustainability efforts are facing some serious obstacles from a growing section of the population and political sphere, the fact more and more organisations are committing to a reporting process is reassuring. Not least given we are seeing a dangerous rise in advocacy for abandoning any effort to improve equality and representation in the workforce, and society as a whole.
The landscape has changed, but these organisations are committed to doing the right thing and keeping momentum up. We also know that many of the organisations who couldn’t take part this year were held back by capacity, not a lack of commitment,’ says Manu Maunganidze of the RACE Report team. ‘Going forward, we’ll be streamlining the data submission process to make it easier for these organisations to take part and have their staff represented.
‘Fortunately, the overall employee sample size has stayed steady which means we can still see the direction of travel clearly, and there is progress to celebrate – especially among those who’ve been on this journey from the beginning,’ he continues. ‘We never launched this campaign expecting to overhaul representation across an entire sector overnight. Some of the most important insights come from the organisations that report year after year, and they are making headway in enabling our sector to better reflect the national picture. Only through sustained efforts and a focus on implementation can we understand what’s working and where the sector still needs to push.’
Image: Zacqueline Baldwin / Unsplash
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