Purpose & Sustainability April 2025: Our planet, whose choice? The UK's land balancing act

Tuesday marked the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, a day circled in the global calendar to reflect on our collective responsibility as environmental stewards. This year's theme, "Our Power, Our Earth," feels particularly poignant as we witness an intensifying tug-of-war between global players over whose power ultimately shapes our planet's future. As nations jockey for position in this high-stakes game of resource allocation and environmental policy, we're left to ask: whose vision will determine how we balance the critical demands on our land?  

The inaugural Earth Day in 1970 saw 20 million Americans - representing 10% of the US population at that time - take to the streets in demonstration against the impacts of industrialisation on human health and the environment. This unified protest catalysed the formation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency which passed groundbreaking environmental legislations such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. 

Fast forward 55 years, and we've witnessed what current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called "the most consequential day of deregulation in American history". With Trump's EPA seeking to roll back 31 pollution rules last month to ‘power the great American comeback’, it is hard not to see this as undermining the very progress Earth Day sought to achieve. While the rationale was that energy security should not come at the expense of environmental protection, the dial has been firmly turned the other way.  

This binary thinking doesn’t just exist across the Atlantic – the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeve's, assertion at Davos that "economic growth trumps net zero" exemplifies precisely the false dichotomies we must transcend.  

Britain's critical land challenges 

Here in the UK, we face our own delicate balancing act. With Labour's ambitious goals to triple renewable energy capacity, ensure food security, and build 1.5 million houses by 2030, our finite land resources are under unprecedented pressure. Launched at the beginning of the year, this week marks the closing of the government's Land Use Framework consultation, which sought perspectives on how to juggle competing objectives and "set the direction" for future land use in England.  

However, UK farmers have increasingly felt they have been left out in the cold, weathering what the NFU President described as a "battering" over the past 18 months. With unfavourable changes to Inheritance Tax and the closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive, farmers now confront the prospect that approximately 9% of England's agricultural land will need converting into forest and wild habitats by 2050 to meet government net zero and nature targets. While Defra claims these changes won't affect food production due to “productivity improvements," this is a promise many farmers regard with deep scepticism due to sky rocketing fertiliser prices and lack of funding for sustainable alternatives.  

If domestic production declines, Britain risks becoming increasingly dependent on imports - a worrying possibility as Chancellor Rachel Reeves pursues a UK - USA trade deal in Washington. This agreement could potentially flood our market with cheaper food produced to lower environmental and welfare standards. While "food security is national security" featured prominently in Labour's 2024 manifesto, farmer confidence in the Government to protect their interests has plummeted to record lows. 

Farmers have warned that 2025 represents a critical juncture for Britain's food system. As such, they have embraced the origin of Earth Day and taken to the streets in protest en mass this year - the sight of a tractor in central London is now almost commonplace enough to not elicit a double take.  

As the government develops its updated National Food Strategy and 25 Year Roadmap for Farming, we need coherent policies that enshrine a "right to food" in UK law, establish agricultural productivity targets alongside environmental objectives, incentivise integration of renewable energy with farming, and protect high standards in trade agreements. Nature isn't an impediment to growth; it must be seen as its foundation. 

Fifty-five years after the first Earth Day, we face challenges that defy simplistic solutions. Yet if we've learned anything from decades of environmental activism, it's that progress emerges when we refuse to accept false choices between prosperity and sustainability. The way forward isn't about choosing between feeding people and saving the planet; it's about recognising these goals as inextricably linked and finding the wisdom to pursue them in tandem.