Bodies on the street

Giving up some of your time to support a cause that you believe in, is an important part of trying to effect change on the world.

So, on Friday 21st of April 2023,  most of The Plant team took a day off and headed to The Big One across a bunch of locations in Westminster.

Joining a number of the People's Pickets, we danced with doctors outside the Treasury, yelled our support for refugees outside the Home Office and were swept up with a huge river of people that flowed around the borough, ending in front of the Houses of Parliament.

Much better than mini golf, spending a day together as a team in support of positive action for the climate confirmed our shared values, and helped us feel that there were many more like us. It was interesting to see the really broad sweep of people, businesses and organisations involved; all hoping we could take action and make a difference (however small).

We started our journey at the Fashion Declares event out the front of the Department for Business and Trade. Fashion Declares is a group of fashion businesses, including our much-loved client Mantis, speaking out for urgent action on the climate. You can find out more here.

There were people from all sorts of great businesses and groups, including Business Declares (yes, a similar commitment!), Patagonia, Financial Times, The Body Shop, Cafedirect and Pukka. We were in great company!

The whole event was the major part of Extinction Rebellion's new strategy of larger, focussed protests, produced in collaboration with the authorities. This meant that as a company we wouldn't be putting our staff at risk of injury or arrest, and could happily join the more hard line edge of protest and activism in the UK.

To be honest, the jury is still out on whether Extinction Rebellion's new strategy is working with any real impact, but we were certainly happy to be part of the experiment.