A playbook for when your commitment to social justice exists in your values statement but not in your operations.

Climate Action Leeds is a five-year partnership programme funded by the National Lottery Community Fund, bringing together dozens of organisations with the shared goal of developing a zero-carbon, nature-friendly and socially just Leeds by the 2030s. 

As well-intentioned and well-resourced as the programme was, by year four, a partner organisation focused on racial justice had withdrawn from it.

The evaluation report that followed didn’t shirk from what had happened, citing weaknesses in the partnership's governance systems, knowledge and skills on embedding race and climate justice. The assessment stated that more work was needed to engage people from racially marginalised communities, and that it should have been embedded from the outset rather than planned late in the programme. 

But this is not a story about a failing organisation. It is a story about a very common one, as the RACE Report 2025, which tracks racial diversity across environmental charities, found that racially minoritised communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental harm while remaining persistently under-represented and excluded within environmental organisations, leadership and decision-making.

Only 3% of charity chief executives in the UK are from a Black, Asian or ethnically marginalised background, against 14% of the population. This figure has been cited for years, and it moves slowly, exposing a deeper structural problem in the sector. 

The word "diversity" is used liberally in mission statements, as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has noted, but it often fails to materialise in working practices or appear in staff demographics. Without policies to back it up, diversity and inclusion become buzzwords, and worse, a parody that triggers eye rolls from staff of all backgrounds.

What Climate Action Leeds encountered was familiar: a commitment to racial justice was stated, and a partner was brought in. But the governance systems, the decision-making processes, and the resource allocation hadn’t been designed with racial justice as a structural requirement. And it seems that Racial Justice was an aspiration, part of a wishlist of things to ensure the programme ticked the boxes, but with nothing structural to support, embed or deliver racial justice in the long term. This isn’t just a technical failure because when this discrepancy exists, the communities you’re supposed to be helping notice and feel it first. 

At what point does a commitment to social justice stop being a value and start being an operational fact?

The way to resolve this is not to do what almost all charities do, which is to hire someone. The solution is also not found in a working group formed after something goes wrong. And it is not unconscious bias training for the board. These things matter, but they are reactions to the absence of structure - to the failings that exist and not the structure itself. The ops leader's job is to find where in the organisation inclusion is structural and where it isn’t, and to be candid about which one it is before a partner notices and withdraws or a community stops showing up

There is no simple answer, but these are questions you can ask yourself when embedding inclusion into your organisation. If you can’t answer the questions, then that itself is data for you. 

Who are the communities your organisation exists to serve, and who among them is currently least well reached? Be specific here, for example, in terms of the name of the group. Their neighbourhood or a particular characteristic.

Which operational areas of your organisation directly touch those communities? This is not just about programmes only, consider partnerships, communications, procurement, hiring, and governance. Each one signals whether or not the areas have been designed with inclusion in mind.

Who is in the room when decisions about those areas are made? Are representatives of the communities you serve part of that conversation, or are they consulted after the decisions are finalised? 

What does your board composition tell those communities about whether their interests will inform the decisions that matter to them? Is there a mechanism for racial justice thinking to shape board decisions?

Have you built feedback routes from the communities you serve into your structure? Thinking here beyond ad hoc surveys and consultations, and more a standing route that means their experience of your organisation reaches the people with the power to change it.

If you can answer all of those questions specifically, you are further along than most. If you can’t, then you have the beginnings of your work plan to embed inclusion into your organisation.