Search Results (3)

The need for the world to follow a more carbon-neutral path is clear, with growing evidence highlighting the existential threat posed by unregulated GHG emissions. Responsibility for achieving this does not only lie with policy makers but is shared with all stakeholders including governments, private sectors, charities and civil society as a whole. Several methodological approaches have been developed to set emission reduction targets, including the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). However, it is yet to be widely adopted, and as thought leaders in the field, universities must take a lead in its interpretation and application. This study is reported from the perspective of a UK university, which is adopting climate change considerations to facilitate achieving Czero by 2030 and will act as an exemplar case. We calculate baseline emissions, science-based reduction targets for different carbon emission reduction methods and options in terms of financing emission reduction pathways at present and in the future. The study outcomes show that incorporating a SBTi methodology can serve as insight into other medium-sized organisations and universities wishing to develop a net-zero pathway. These results have been summarised into a series of recommendations. Full article

Since its inception in 1997, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has evolved to become one of the most enduring British Muslim organisations. It is a representative body for over 500 member bodies (‘affiliates’) including mosques, schools and charities. During the course of the last two decades, it has been subject to external comment and sometimes critique by academics, media commentators, policy-makers, and others. This special issue of the journal Religions has provided a welcome opportunity for the current leadership of the MCB to write about the organisation from ‘within’, based on their long-standing time volunteering with it. This paper is based on an oral history methodology involving extended interviews with the oversight of a research director, supplemented by reference to existing academic and other sources. Therefore this paper is essentially a type of ‘edited transcript’ aggregated wholly from a series of first person interviews undertaken with the current senior elected leaders of MCB; reorganised for clarity and drafted out with added ‘prose’ allowing for it to be presented in essay form. The result is the first documented ‘insider’ perspective on the ways in which the MCB has tackled issues such as internal governance, the challenge of ‘representation’ in view of the diversity of British Muslim communities, changing relationships with government, and policy work. It becomes apparent through the paper that the MCB has matured into a constructively self-critical, pro-active, and more strategically professional body, that contributes to the flourishing of Muslim communities and the place of Islam in British society. The production of the paper is itself an indicator of the growing confidence and capacity of the MCB, and its ability to contribute positively to academic discourse and debate about Muslims in Britain. Full article

We draw upon a ‘small history’ of one family to throw light on lived experience of welfare in the past, and consider how it may provide some glimpses into what Britain’s current economy of welfare trajectory could mean, where the state welfare safety net has holes and an ad hoc charitable safety net is being constructed beneath them. Using archived case notes from the Charity Organisation Society across the interwar period to the comprehensive welfare state, we discuss one family’s negotiation of poverty and the fragmented economy of welfare involving nascent state provision and a safety net of myriad charitable bodies, and the need to be judged as respectable and worthy. While lived experience of inequalities of assessment criteria, provision and distribution provide some indication for the potential trajectory of contemporary welfare in Britain, towards fragmented localised settlements, the small history also reveals a muted story of alternatives and reliability. Full article