Green beliefs win legal protection
the right to legal redress yesterday after a judge ruled that green beliefs deserved
the same protection in the workplace as religious convictions.
of claims Mr Justice Burton ruled that environmental views should be protected
under the employment equality laws.
environmental views such as how a company should deal with cutting carbon emissions, managing waste or using aviation to travel to meetings, can bring compensation claims against employers.
could be unlimited.
Grainger, claimed his redundancy last year was a direct result of his green opinions
– which put him at odds with other senior executives within the firm.
an employment tribunal to seek compensation for his dismissal, and asked the court
to allow him to use special legislation which protects people’s rights to hold
religious and philosophical beliefs at work – the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, 2003.
amounts to a philosophical belief under the meaning of the regulations. Yesterday the judge confirmed the view of an employment judge at a pre-hearing
review in March – revealed in The Independent – that it does.
views were not the same as religious or philosophical beliefs.
“If a person can establish that he holds a philosophical belief which is based
on science as opposed, for example, to religion, then there is no reason to disqualify
it from protection.”
in Oxford, can go ahead and use the regulations to bring his case against his
former employers. He said: “I am grateful that Mr Justice Burton understood that
deeply and genuinely held views about catastrophic climate change and the need
to change our ways to protect the human race are philosophical views that are
worthy of protection. Such views are more and more relevant to our planet’s survival.”
the case would be of great benefit to many employees. “For claimants in this
country there is no doubt that this is a very good judgment… But they will have
to be able to show that they acted in good faith and not for any financial advantage.”
She said that the legal argument on this point could be eventually heard in the
Court of Appeal or even the Supreme Court.
ruling was important but the test as to what constitutes environmental belief
worthy of protection was a high one. He said: “It was established in a judgment in 2007 that a belief has to have sufficient
cogency and cohesion worthy of respect within a democratic society. Not all cases will meet this test.”
said: “The ramifications of Tim Nicholson winning this test case are massive.
In essence victory will put employees who hold strong environmental beliefs in
the same category – and with the same protection – as workers who hold strong
religious beliefs.”
open the floodgates for others who believe their employers have victimised them
simply because of their views on the environment and how business deals with pressing
environmental issues such as climate change and reducing our carbon emissions.”
of the human race.
for his concerns and claimed he once flew a member of staff to Ireland to deliver
his BlackBerry which he had left in London.
the firm as head of sustainability in July last year.
as it has done from the very outset of these proceedings, that Mr Nicholson’s
redundancy was driven solely by the operational needs of the company during a
period of extraordinary market turbulence, which also required other structural
changes to be made within the company.”
motivation relating to Mr Nicholson’s beliefs or otherwise. Grainger has a long-held
commitment to acting as a responsible landlord, employer and member of the business
community.”