Greenpeace UK has pledged to match the diversity of its workforce in every city it operates in.

The aim has been set out this week in the charity's 2030 Race &Ethnicity Representation Goals and includes matching its workforce to the diversity of London “one of the most diverse, multicultural cities in the world”, said the charity.

The move has been made as its workforce “is significantly less diverse” than London’s population.

“We’re very proud to be accelerating our work on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) – especially at a time when DEI efforts are facing growing backlash,” said the charity’s diversity, inclusion and anti-racism lead Rosie Ngugi.

“We know both from the available research, and also from our own experience increasing diversity amongst our staff, that it leads to new perspectives, new ideas, and a new and improved understanding of the audiences we need to reach to build people power and create meaningful change.”

Greenpeace UK is aiming to ensure 38.3% of its London workforce identify as people of colour by 2030, ensuring that it aligns with diversity in the capital.

It has also pledged toc close its ethnicity pay gap, which currently stands at 5.6% by 2030.

Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, added: “At Greenpeace UK we want to lead our sector in ambition and delivery, and a key part of ensuring our campaigning is effective is setting ourselves clear targets and holding ourselves accountable for them.

“Diversity is not a ‘nice to have’ but a core value for us, as it needs to be for any organisation seeking to remain relevant to a diverse audience, and essential to meeting our mission.

“We cannot win on protecting our climate and biodiversity without an embedded understanding of how they intertwine with the diversity of human societies.

“These goals quantify our commitment to diversity in a way that demands and enables concrete, measurable progress.”

Environmental charities are blighted by a lack of global majority worker representation, according to the third annual RACE Report, which was published in February and analyses racial diversity among green charities and founders.

It found that global majority representation is particularly low among larger charities.

Commenting on these findings, Hamid warned that “environmental organisations are still very white, especially at the top”.

“I find myself in CEO meetings where I'm the only person of colour in the room, and it just doesn’t feel right in 21st-century Britain,” he added.

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