Support growing in Leicester for Planet Over Profit campaign

Support for the Planet Over Profit campaign continues to grow across Leicester. This national campaign is calling for a new law, the Business, Human Rights & Environment Act, to hold companies accountable for harm caused in their supply chain and to protect habitats, workers' rights and the rights of indigenous people. At the moment, it is too easy for big companies to claim ignorance of what is happening in the places where they source their materials and their goods and this allows them to do enormous harm. We need to hold them to account. (Read more about this campaign using the 'corporate accountability' tag on this blog.)

Five more Leicester-based organisations have now signed our open letter to MPs, bringing the total to thirteen supporting organisations:

• Global Justice Leicester and Leicestershire
• Leicester Quaker Meeting
• Pioneer Parishes
• Christians Aware
• Stoneygate Baptist Church

We are continuing to contact organisations to ask if they would like to sign the open letter. If you know of a place of worship, local business or community group that might be interested in supporting this campaign, please let us know at leicesterfoe@gmail.com . 

We're also continuing to collect support from individuals! Today we've been at the University of Leicester Students Union, as part of their Green Week, talking to students about the campaign and collecting signed postcards to take to MPs. If you haven't managed to come to one of our stalls to talk to us in person, you can still sign the online petition to show your support for fair supply chains. 

Update on our Planet Over Profit campaign: more organisations support good business

We are delighted to be starting 2026 by announcing that four more Leicester-based organisations are supporting the national ‘Planet Over Profit’ campaign by signing our local open letter to Leicester MPs calling for a Business, Human Rights & Environment Act. This new law would hold companies to account for any harm caused in their supply chain and protect important habitats, workers’ rights and the rights of indigenous people. Companies should be responsible for ensuring that their profits don’t come at the expense of people and planet, but existing laws aren’t holding them to account.

The four latest signatories include a Muslim environmental group, a community centre, a small business and a church:

• Green Guardians
• Highfields Centre
• Currant Affairs
• Christchurch Clarendon Park (Baptist/Methodist LEP Church)

You can read the full text of our open letter and see who had already signed in the previous blog post.

We are also still collecting support from individuals, through postcards (which you can colour in!) and a digital petition to MPs. Please sign our petition if you live in Leicester and share with your family and friends! And if you own a business or are part of a community organisation that might want to support this campaign, please get in touch with us: leicesterfoe@gmail.com.

Thank you to local organisations supporting good business!

As part of the Planet Over Profit campaign, we are collecting support from local organisations for a Business, Human Rights & Environment Act in an open letter to our local MPs. We are grateful to the first four organisations who have signed: 

• The Race Equality Centre
• Leicester & District Trades Union Council
• Green & Pleasant
• Climate Action Leicester and Leicestershire

If you own a business or are part of an organisation that might want to support this campaign, please get in touch with us: leicesterfoe@gmail.com 

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Dear Shockat Adam, Liz Kendall and Shivani Raja,

We are writing to you as small business owners, trade unions and community groups in your constituencies of Leicester South, Leicester West and Leicester East. Together, we represent an important cross-section of the local community who wish to buy and supply ethical products and are concerned by the many harms caused by unregulated supply chains—from modern slavery and unfair working conditions, to deforestation and land grabs.

We are writing in support of a new Business, Human Rights & Environment Act, which would hold UK companies and the public sector legally responsible for preventing harm to people and planet in their supply chains, and contribute to a Just Transition to a greener and fairer economy. Such a law would also enable workers, local communities and Indigenous Peoples in the UK and around the world, who are harmed by UK companies or public sector supply chains, to seek justice in a UK court.

The demand for ethical and sustainable products and services in Leicester is now mainstream with many people turning away from companies complicit in environmental harm and human rights abuses. YouGov polling¹ shows that over 80% of UK adults want new UK laws requiring British companies to prevent human rights abuses and serious environmental damage in their operations and supply chains.

We urge you to add your name to the over 50 MP’s and Peers who have signed the Good Business Matters pledge² in support of this new law in parliament and engage with us and Friends of the Earth to ensure it is a fair and robust piece of legislation we can all be proud of. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

1https://corporatejusticecoalition.org/news/press/press-release-four-in-five-uk-adults-support-new-laws-to-tackle-environmental-harm-and-human-rights-abuses-in-company-supply-chains/

2 https://www.goodbusinessmatters.org/

Planet Over Profit campaign stalls

Over the summer, we are getting involved in the big national campaign, Planet Over Profit. This is calling for a new law that would hold companies accountable for harm caused by their supply chains. From the food on our plates to the clothes we wear, global supply chains controlled by corporations are often plagued with harmful environmental impacts and human rights abuses. These can include land grabbing from local communities and Indigenous peoples, when forests are cleared for palm oil plantations or soy crops, for use in processed foods and animal feed. And forced labour and poor working conditions are rife in garment factories churning out fast fashion. Companies should be responsible for ensuring that their profits don’t come at the expense of people and planet. But existing laws aren’t holding them to account. Read more about the campaign and the need for a new law here. 

We are collecting public support in Leicester. We had two stalls at the Green Film Festival at the Phoenix last month and we spent this morning in Knighton Park, talking to passersby. We are asking people to sign a postcard to their MP supporting this new law. People can also colour in their postcard, or we have some that are already coloured in by children who have been helping us! We are also colouring in a large banner, which we will take with us when we go to visit Leicester's MPs in the autumn. Our next stall will be before the Bee Picnic in Humberstone Park on 30th August. If you can't come to a stall to sign a postcard, you can still show your support for this campaign by signing our local online petition. 

As well as collecting support from individuals, we are also collecting letters of support for a new law from local businesses and organisations. If you own a business or are part of an organisation that might want to support this campaign, please get in touch with us: leicesterfoe@gmail.com 

Planet Over Profit campaign launch

We held a campaign launch event for our Planet Before Profit campaign, in Leicester’s Town Hall Square, as part of a national launch of this campaign.  We are calling for a new law to make it much easier to hold companies accountable for environmental damage and human rights abuses caused by their activities, both directly and within their supply chains.  Amongst those attending was Abigail, the Leicester Friends of the Earth orangutan. 

Friends of the Earth are part of a coalition of organizations campaigning for a new UK Business Human Rights and Environment Act, which would require companies to exercise “due diligence” in identifying and preventing both environmental damage and human rights abuses in their supply chains.  This would include things like deforestation, pollution and climate impacts, and things like land grabbing from indigenous communities and forced labour. 

In line with a recommendation by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights the proposed legislation would be based on the UK’s existing Bribery Act.  It would require companies and public bodies to carry out thorough checks on their supply chain, to identify risks and establish measures to prevent harm.  It would incorporate tough sanctions for failing to do this and allow companies to be held accountable in both civil and criminal courts.  It would also give affected communities a right to seek redress and require companies to engage with potentially affected communities.

Malcolm Hunter explains:

“Unrestrained pursuit of profit is driving widespread environmental destruction and human rights abuses world-wide. Many UK companies are contributing towards this, and this proposed legislation is designed to make them act in much more socially responsible ways and allow them to be held to account if they don’t.  Many other countries have already introduced similar legislation, or are in the process of doing so, but the UK currently lags behind and needs to catch up”.

Vigil for Palestine

Today we joined some local peace campaigners in a vigil for Palestine by Leicester's Clock Tower. Melanie Wakley spoke on behalf of Leicester Friends of the Earth. Here is what she said:

"Leicester Friends of the Earth comes to this vigil in solidarity with Palestine Friends of the Earth, also known as PENGON. PENGON is made up of 14 grassroots organisations working in both the West Bank and Gaza, and is the foremost environmental NGO network in Palestine. They have suffered terribly since the start of the war and continue to. Five PENGON members have been killed in Israeli airstrikes. 

The most recent escalations in violence are happening amid a decades’ long occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people. For years, our colleagues in PENGON have shared with us the huge challenges of living under occupation. They now find their work hugely hindered, including in the West Bank, but they carry on despite the challenges. We stood with them before the war and we stand with them now. 

Friends of the Earth is the largest grassroots environmental justice network in the world. We know that to respond to the environmental crises we face, we must act on a global stage. We do this through our international network. That network’s strength depends upon its bonds of solidarity. Environmental justice means standing against injustice where we see it. The war on Gaza, and the Occupation, are towering, historic injustices. As an environmental justice network, we stand against oppression wherever we see it. 

We also want to grieve the environmental impacts of the war and the occupation. As much as 50% of Gaza’s agricultural and farmland has been damaged and 70% of its trees destroyed. 100,000 cubic meters of sewage and wastewater are daily dumped into land and sea. Between October and June 2024, more than 2,000 agricultural sites — including farms and greenhouses — were demolished in Gaza. There is reportedly 37 million tons of rubble in Gaza, increasing the risk of exposure to harmful substances like asbestos and pollutants released from facilities containing hazardous materials. The scale of destruction is simply staggering. 

Damage to the environment may seem secondary to the loss of life, but it is entwined with the humanitarian crisis. The people of Palestine live in their environment. Harm to water and sanitation, access to food, land pollution, the destruction of environmental projects, all affect the current and future liveability of Gaza. The Latest PENGON research from October 2024 has identified:

● 63 unregulated landfills with 1.2 million tons of solid waste causing an imminent public health disaster with transfer of diseases  

● Hepatitis, vomiting, yellow fever, trachoma, malaria, cholera, have all emerged, more than 50% of children are infected with Hepatitis A

● A 68% decline in Gazan crop yields 

● 93% of the groundwater wells are inoperable – ‘there is no clean water in Gaza and the luckiest people can access 3 litres of drinking water a day’. Water for other purposes has decreased from 80 to less than 20 litres

The UK could be doing so much more to bring peace. Our government provides crucial diplomatic support to Israel and continues to supply arms. This is despite an appallingly high number of civilian casualties and the vast destruction of Gaza, as well as accusations of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, war crimes and genocide. The UK is at risk of complicity in the accused crimes and could make a significant difference. We are calling for a full arms embargo. We must stop arming Israel."

Indigenous peoples conquest and revival

This longer article was written by Alison Skinner, a member of Leicester Friends of the Earth, to give an overview of the history of indigenous peoples. 

Summary

The UN estimates that there are currently around 370 million indigenous people living in over 70 countries. Most of us are aware of the way in which our European ancestors exploited indigenous peoples in the lands they conquered, but we also need to think about the new methods of social and economic oppression which are happening right now. It is also the case that indigenous people in many countries are not just passive victims of this process and where possible are acting individually and collectively to preserve their homes, communities and culture.