Do you truly ‘believe’ in green? Landmark case suggests green is a religion and believers deserves the same protection
Because if you do, your beliefs could be entitled to the same legal protection as those of a religious nature thanks to a landmark case this week.
Tim Nicholson, the former head of sustainability at Grainger PLC (pictured right), the UK’s largest residential landlord, took his former employer to court on the grounds that he was dismissed for his environmental views.
The Judge, Michael Burton (the judge who ruled in 2007 that Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was “broadly accurate” but lacked balance) said today that “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations” IF, like other philosophical beliefs it passed 5 tests including: “It must be a belief and not an opinion or view based on the present state of information available.”
Nicholson, while obviously delighted with the ruling, however insists that his views differ from religious sentiment and ARE weighted in what he believes are facts ‘based on the present state of information available’. He says: “The moral and ethical values are similar to those that are promoted and adopted by many of the world’s religions. But one of the key differences I think is that mine is not a faith-based or spiritual-based belief: it is grounded in the overwhelming scientific evidence and it’s the combination of that scientific evidence with the moral and ethical imperative to do something about it that is distinct from a religion.”
Nevertheless, certain green activists still fear that equating their views with religion will only fuel the debate that man’s influence on global warming is unfounded and therefore acting to curb it is a waste of time.
The judge has yet to rule on whether Nicholson was actually dismissed for his green ‘beliefs’ and not, as Grainger claims, because of financial issues, but those involved in employment law think this case will have a huge influence on other beliefs, such as feminism, vegetarianism, humanism etc.
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SOPHYTO Organics believes that man definitely has a responsibility to care for the environment as best we can, and as such, conducts all of its actions in accordance with a set of principles as sustainable as currently possible. For more info on our green principles, visit the SOPHYTO Organics website.
