3 minute read
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion: progressing the ED&I journey
Back in 2021, the Association hosted Access all Areas, an inclusion and diversity panel discussion, exploring the barriers that people within the landscaping industry and those that enter it face in relation to accessibility, attitudes, facilities and not being considered a suitable fit for a role. Borne out of this event, professional bodies from across the industry came together to develop the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Charter, committing to improve equality, diversity and inclusivity, which was launched in November 2022.
Landscape News caught up with Adrian Wickham who, along with Tessa Johnstone represents BALI on the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) Charter group to find out what has been happening behind the scenes and the progress being made.
Adrian: It’s been an exciting time following the launch of the charter at Futurescape last year. The ED&I Charter group have been continuing to meet bi-monthly, sharing knowledge and starting to set priorities. We’re not experts in this area, so we’ve had several ED&I specialists join our meetings. By speaking to these people, we can get a flavour of what they are saying and what they can offer us, providing us with independent advice and guidance that will give us one consistent voice and benefit the industry as a whole.
LN: You’ve launched an ED&I survey, asking everyone within the industry to take part. Why is this so important?
Adrian: Our first priority is having baseline figures for the industry, to understand how diverse we are. We believe we are diverse, but we haven’t got any factual figures to share. That is what this survey is all about - getting hard data so we can better understand where we are.
If we are going to be implementing actions, we need to be able to focus this in the right places as well as be able to measure success. This survey will be able to provide us with the base data to work from - to know what we need to do.
We’re asking anyone working within the landscaping and horticulture industry to take 5 minutes to complete the survey. The more people that complete the survey, the more meaningful and robust the data we have to work with. This ensures we look to focus our efforts in the right areas.
LN: With five core objectives set out in the charter, how are you moving forward with action plans?
Adrian: In addition to the survey, a task and finish group has been set up, with the aim of creating a single, industry-wide policy about how we can all approach equality, diversity and inclusion, and how to get further information. These two key pieces of work will be leading to an event we’re planning later in the year. In September we are hoping to host a round table discussion about the outcomes of the survey, what they mean and what we need to do to progress the industry.
Although it feels like this process is slow, as a group, we want to ensure we have a solid foundation of industry data and greater knowledge of equality, diversity and inclusion practices to be able to really affect positive change. This is a fantastic industry to work in, and we want to ensure anyone who wants to work in it not only has the opportunity to do so, but feels they can also make a positive impact.
