From Diversity to Equity: A deeper look into Greenpeace UK’s 2025 RACE Report Transparency Card

The 2025 RACE Report offers an opportunity not just to measure representation, but to look at how power, culture, and lived experience are shifting across the environmental sector.

The release of the 2025 RACE Report offers a moment for the entire environmental sector to reflect on our collective journey toward equity. The data shows a positive movement: while overall sector representation sits at 4.7% (up from 4.5% last year), those who have consistently reported since 2022 have seen a steady climb to 8.4%. Notably, the report highlights that organisations focusing on climate or climate justice, such as Greenpeace UK, are seeing higher engagement, with an average representation of 16.3%.

Our growth also reflects this positive movement. Our data for the 2025 RACE Report, as shown in our Transparency Card, shows representation at 24% (47 out of 197). This exceeds not only the sector average but also the 17% representation seen across the wider British workforce. We see these figures as a contribution to a broader, more representative movement that is finally beginning to reflect the world we seek to protect.

This intentional growth must continue. Our award-winning representation targets reflect our commitment to becoming an organisation that not only represents wider society, but more importantly, shifts power to marginalised and impacted communities to shape the solutions we need.

Beyond Diversity Data and towards Equity

Growth is one thing, but an anti-racist approach requires looking beyond recruitment to ensure that we are an organisation where ethnically minoritised staff can stay, thrive, and lead. We have broken down our 2025 performance across three key areas: retention, progression, and decision-making power:

• Retention: We have made significant strides in retaining our ethnically minoritised staff. In 2024, only 22.2% (2 out of 9) of ethnically minoritised staff on fixed-term contracts received contract extensions or were made permanent. By 2025, that rose to 62.5% (5 out of 8), keeping vital expertise within the movement.
• Progression: Internal promotions remained steady (3 colleagues in both 2024 and 2025); however, as our representation of ethnically minoritised staff has grown, this indicates a slight dip in the overall share of promotions from 25% (3 out of 12) to 23% (3 out of 13). Our progression rates must proactively keep pace with our growth, which is why we are making progression a priority this year by enhancing initiatives like our PoC Equity and Empowerment Programme, ensuring supported pathways into leadership and specialist roles.
• Decision-Making Power: Despite a decrease in the total number of manager roles across the organisation, the number of people from minoritised backgrounds in management rose from 7 (out of 62) in 2024 to 9 (out of 60) in 2025. This increased their share of representation from 11.3% to 15% in a single year. Our Senior Management Team (SMT) remained steady with 28.6% PoC leaders (2 out of 7), as did our Board of Directors at 42.9% representation (3 out of 7). Having this level of representation across all levels of leadership ensures diverse perspectives are shaping our core strategy.

The RACE Report is a vital tool for collective accountability. While we are encouraged by shifts across the sector and in our own organisation, we recognise that representation is only one part of the story. True equity is found in the lived experience of our staff – how they stay, grow, and thrive at Greenpeace UK. We remain committed to learning alongside our peers in the sector to build an equitable organisation where people feel included, valued and safe to be themselves.

— Janine Bourne, People & Culture Director, Greenpeace UK

Intersectional Disability Rights and Inclusion

The most striking finding in this year’s data is the significant intersection between race and disability. Our data demonstrates a clear intersectional reality. Whilst in line with the sector, a significant proportion of our ethnically minoritised staff group identify as disabled, and at a notably higher rate than their White colleagues.

To protect the privacy and anonymity of this group, we are not publishing the specific headcounts or percentages, but the trend is clear: our anti-racism work cannot exist in a vacuum.This insight confirms our strategic direction to improve disability awareness and understanding so that our workplace is more inclusive and our campaigns are better informed. Whilst we are ensuring that workplace adjustments and wellbeing support are central to our anti-oppressive practice, we are also challenging ableist systemic barriers to inclusion and accessibility.

Adapting our Culture to match our Diversity

As we diversify, we acknowledge that representation without cultural evolution can lead to harm. This is why our Inclusion Project is now entering Phase 2: Bold Intervention Design. Having completed our initial insights phase, where we listened deeply to the lived experiences of our staff, we are now designing bold interventions needed to ensure a deep sense of belonging for everyone. We also recognise that as an established organisation, we can learn from newer organisations who – as demonstrated through the RACE Report 2025 – are starting from higher levels of diversity. We are eager to explore their approaches to diversity, to understand how they are sustaining these levels, and what different perspectives they can offer the wider movement.

Why This Work Is Strategic, Not Optional

Transparency isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being honest about the work ahead. As you look at our 2025 Transparency Card, we hope you see an organisation that is leaning into the work – determined to build a more equitable and powerful movement for our people and our planet.

Ultimately, diversifying our organisation and evolving our culture is not a “side project”; it is a strategic necessity for winning the fight for climate justice. To succeed, we must all centre the perspectives of marginalised communities and those most affected by the climate crisis and social injustice. This leadership is the only way to ensure our solutions are rooted in reality and equity.

A diverse, resilient, and inclusive movement is also a necessary defence against the rise of the far right – a real and growing threat to climate and social justice. Solidarity across difference is not idealism; it is protection.