Friends of the Earth Scotland – The NEN

Climate protesters target Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association conference in Edinburgh

Campaigners from Extinction Rebellion Scotland, Divest Lothian, Friends of the Earth Scotland and Protest in Harmony demonstrated outside the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association Investment conference in Edinburgh this morning.

The protest included a performance calling on delegates to acknowledge they are currently hugely underestimating climate risk and to take bold action to address this.

This annual Pension Investment conference brings over 800 delegates to Edinburgh from across the UK pension investment industry; an industry which invests more that £1.3 trillion on behalf of 30 million people.

Attracting the attention of delegates with singing and a ‘Big Oil Funk’ dance, campaigners portrayed a pension fund leader with his head in the sand being persuaded by actuaries and climate scientists to look up and “Face the Climate Risks”.

They warn of the “catastrophic” risks to communities and the economy which are being ignored by pension funds due to the flawed climate risk assessments supplied by their advisers, according to ‘Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature’, a report published in January 2025 by The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, in conjunction with climate scientists at the University of Exeter.

The report explains how climate change and nature-driven risks have been hugely underestimated through flawed economic modelling and risk assessment processes. It sets out that we are on a trajectory to catastrophic warming levels of > 2°C by 2050, leading to a possible 50% contraction of the global economy within the lifetimes of current pension savers.

Alexander Forbes, 35, Lifeguard and XR Edinburgh & Lothians, said: “The warning from the actuaries, the risk experts, couldn’t be more stark. Risk management by pension funds is currently blind to systemic climate, nature, societal and economic risks.

“The lack of urgency within governments to make the sweeping policy changes necessary – and within the pension industry to demand that they do – can be directly attributed to the flawed economic modelling and risk assessment processes widely considered authoritative, that underestimate the risk.

“We urgently need the people managing our pension savings to boldly face these risks, be honest about the risks with pension savers and demand the government take immediate policy action to accelerate the energy transition and reduce emissions.”

The actuaries’ report comes at a time when UK pension funds are investing an estimated £88 billion in fossil fuel companies which, buoyed by support from the new US administration, are intent on increasing oil and gas production and worsening the climate crisis, as evidenced by BP’s ‘reset’ announced in February.

Joan Forehand, 60, retired accountant and Divest Lothian, said: “Pension fund managers have their heads in the sand when it comes to climate risk. They need to look at the evidence in front of them, which risk experts have hammered home. A robust approach to climate risk assessment would clearly show that investing in the fossil fuel industry is not in the interests of its members.

“Divestment by pension funds would be both economically wise, and would send a strong signal to governments that policies and subsidies favouring the fossil fuel industry must be rapidly removed.”

Meanwhile climate records continue to be broken and extreme weather is devastating millions of lives around the world.

Last year, 2024, was the hottest on record, and the first year with an average temperature exceeding 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level. January 2025 was the warmest January on record, surprising scientists who had expected it to be cooler due to transition from El Niño to La Niña conditions.

Sally Clark, divestment campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said:
“Pension funds are in charge of our savings, they are responsible for our futures – but if they keep investing in fossil fuels, we won’t have a liveable planet or positive future to retire into.

“The money moved away from fossil fuels could instead be invested in ways that support local communities and protect the planet for everyone, like renewable energy, warm homes and social housing.”

The campaigners demand that pension fund leaders face the climate risks and urgently:

conduct robust climate risk assessments
divest from fossil fuel companies, and;
advocate with governments for policy changes to accelerate the transition.

PICTURES: Siobhian Chalmers

Holyrood’s Climate Change Bill passed

CARBON BUDGET APPROACH TO SETTING CLIMATE TARGETS AGREED

Legislation that will see Scotland move to using five year carbon budgets to set climate targets has been passed.

The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill amends the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 to introduce limits on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in Scotland over a five-year period.

The move, which is based on recommendations from the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC), aims to provide a more reliable framework for emissions reduction. This is because the previous annual emissions targets are vulnerable to year-to-year fluctuations caused by events such as a particularly cold winter or a global pandemic.

The legislation enables the carbon budgets to be set through secondary legislation based on the expert advice from the Climate Change Committee. The Bill also changes the current deadline to finalise the next Climate Change Plan for Scotland so the Plan can align with the process for setting the new carbon budgets.

Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero Gillian Martin said: “Scotland is now halfway to net zero and continues to be ahead of the UK as a whole in delivering long term emissions reductions.

“The Scottish Government’s commitment to ending Scotland’s contribution to global emissions by 2045 at the latest, as agreed by Parliament on a cross-party basis, is unwavering. It is crucial that our target pathway to 2045 is set at a pace and scale that is feasible and reflects the latest independent expert advice.

“Carbon budgets are an established model for assessment of emissions reductions used by other nations including Japan, France, England and Wales, and they will include emissions from international aviation and shipping and there will be no provision to “carry over” emissions from one carbon budget to another.

“We will continue leading on climate action that is fair, ambitious and capable of rising to the emergency before us and reflects our commitment to the ambition of credible emissions reduction.”

The Stop Climate Chaos coalition have written to First Minister John Swinney:

Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill

Anger as Lothian Pension Fund increases fossil fuel investments

Climate justice campaigners have condemned the Lothian Pension Fund for increasing its investments in fossil fuels despite the worsening climate emergency.

The latest investment holdings list from the Lothian Pension Fund reveals that the fund’s investments in oil and gas companies have risen in value to £208m in 2024 from £166m in 2022. This increase is driven by the purchase of additional shares rather than changes in the market value of existing holdings and has arisen despite Edinburgh and East Lothian councils passing motions in 2022 calling on the fund to divest from fossil fuels in order to tackle the climate crisis.

The Lothian Pension Fund is the second biggest fossil fuel investor of all the council pension funds in Scotland. It invests in some of the world’s biggest climate polluters, including TotalEnergies, Exxon Mobil, Eni, Equinor, Shell and BP.

TotalEnergies, now Lothian Pension Fund’s largest fossil fuel investment following a recent significant purchase of additional shares, is currently developing the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. If completed, the pipeline will stretch 1,444km across Uganda and Tanzania, to pump oil out of new oil fields in Uganda to be exported on the international market. It would produce 379m tonnes of carbon emissions if it goes ahead.

Joan Forehand from campaign group Divest Lothian said: “It is appalling that the Lothian Pension Fund is choosing to invest even more of its members’ pensions in companies that, despite responsible investors’ efforts over many years to get them to change course, are doubling down on oil and gas expansion plans.

“The science is clear: we need to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, and the economic collapse that would bring. Increasing investment in the fossil fuel industry highlights the failure of the Lothian Pension Fund to adequately assess climate change risk in its financial modelling.”

Sally Clark, divestment campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “It’s unbelievable that despite the worsening climate crisis and clear support for ending fossil fuel investments from councillors in Edinburgh and East Lothian, Lothian Pension Fund has actually increased investments in fossil fuels.

“These fossil fuel companies are driving climate breakdown and the pension fund’s managers have a responsibility to act in the best interests of their members and future generations.

“The money moved away from fossil fuels could instead be invested in ways that support local communities and protect the planet for everyone, like renewable energy. As skyrocketing energy bills are plunging millions of people into fuel poverty across the UK, this transition is more important than ever.”

Jane Herbstritt, climate campaigner at Global Justice Now added: “Despite the certainty of the climate emergency, TotalEnergies is pressing ahead with its climate-wrecking development of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline – displacing local communities and destroying the environment in order to profit from pumping out more new oil than can be safely burned.

“It is wholly irresponsible for the Lothian Pension Fund to give its backing to this by increasing its investment in TotalEnergies, particularly when councillors in Edinburgh and East Lothian have voted for the pension fund to divest from oil and gas.”

Divest Lothian is calling on the pension fund’s managers to stop investing in fossil fuels and to instead invest in renewable energy and social housing in order to prioritise the long-term health and well-being of its members and of communities around the world.

First Minister to visit carbon capture scheme: Why is public money going to wealthy polluters?

CARBON CAPTURE FUNDING + VISIT ‘MAKE A MOCKERY’ OF PLANNING PROCESS

First Minister John Swinney will visit the site of an innovative carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility in Aberdeenshire today where he will unveil new Scottish Government funding for the project.

The Acorn project, based in St Fergus, would take captured CO2 emissions from industrial processes across the country and store it safely under the North Sea.

The First Minister will meet representatives of the project and undertake a short tour of the site, before meeting staff and apprentices.

While in Aberdeenshire the First Minister will also meet business leaders and members of the Scottish seafood sector at a roundtable discussion in Peterhead.

Speaking ahead of his visit to the North East, the First Minister said: “Carbon capture and storage will play a huge role in Scotland’s net zero future.

“The Scottish Government is wholly committed to supporting the Acorn Project, which will take advantage of our access to vast CO2 storage potential and our opportunities to repurpose existing oil and gas infrastructure.

“Scotland’s energy transition presents one of the greatest economic and social opportunities of our time. This landmark project will help to support a just transition for oil and gas workers in the North East and across the country, by drawing upon their world-leading skills and expertise to create many good, green jobs in the coming years.

“The North East is also a powerhouse of Scotland’s word-class seafood processing sector, which contributes massively to our economy. According to recent figures the region alone is home to more than 3,379 full time equivalent jobs.

“The Scottish Government will continue to engage and work closely with the sector, and communities, to ensure that Scotland’s fishing industry, the wider seafood sector, and our marine environment can thrive sustainably.”

Climate campaigners have responded to the First Minister’s plans to visit to the Aberdeenshire CCS project saying it ‘makes a mockery’ of the planning process and questioning why there was more public funding being pledged for fossil fuel infrastructure.

The visit was announced as news broke of an official complaint into the Scottish Government’s handling of the planning application for the Peterhead gas power station with carbon capture.

The FM’s visit raises a number of concerns including that the explicit endorsement of this project may undermine any future assessment of a planning application to build the Acorn Project.

Environmentalists are also alarmed that public money is being handed to a pet project of fossil fuel companies. Shell, who are a key partner in Acorn, have made £50 BILLION profit in the past two years.

The Acorn Project is not yet in the planning system, and no application has been made yet it appears the FM is gambling our energy future on this technology working. The Scottish Government’s over-reliance on faltering Negative Emissions Technologies created a huge gap in its calculations around emissions reductions for the 2030 climate targets.

CCS has never delivered the capture rates that its proponents claim and there is a growing body of evidence that all it is doing is capturing public money and providing greenwash for continued fossil fuel expansion.

Friends of the Earth Scotland climate and energy campaigner Caroline Rance said:  “The Acorn carbon capture terminal does not exist and there hasn’t even been a planning application submitted to build it.

“However, with these fawning statements of support, the First Minister is in danger of making a mockery of the Scottish Government conducting a fair assessment of future planning applications.

“Vital public services are crying out for funding yet John Swinney has decided to give millions of pounds to a pet project of Shell, who made £50 billion profit in the last two years. The public must be starting to think the Scottish Government has been captured by the fossil fuel industry with hundreds of cosy meetings, huge handouts and the rolling back of positions on ending oil and gas.

“The Acorn Project is a pipe dream of polluters that will never live up to its hype.The purpose of CCS is to greenwash plans to keep burning oil and gas. Carbon capture has already had billions of pounds and decades of work to prove itself and it has failed on its promises everywhere it has been tried.

“Both the Scottish and UK Governments need to realise that public money would be far better invested in climate solutions that work today and can create decent green jobs such as home insulation, public transport and affordable renewable energy.” 

 Key questions for the First Minister:

• How can Ministers making future planning decisions be expected to judge the Acorn project on its merits when the First Minister is fawning over it and is funnelling public money towards it?

• Why is public money required to deliver this project when the oil companies who will benefit are making obscene profits?

• How will this project avoid the failures that have been seen in every other carbon capture project around the world?

‘Ministerial Code Broken’ in Scottish Government handling of proposed Peterhead fossil fuel power station

THE Scottish Government has been formally accused of 28 breaches of the ministerial code in connection with its handling of a planning application for a new fossil fuel power station at Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.

Friends of the Earth Scotland lodged the official complaint with civil servants on Friday (19th July) and said there was a “deeply concerning pattern of behaviour right across the Scottish Government”.

The breaches include ministers discussing the planning application with developers, ministers publicly supporting the project and the former First Minister Humza Yousaf appearing in a promotional video for power station developer SSE.

Energy companies SSE and Equinor submitted the planning application for a new gas-burning power station with carbon capture in February 2022 and it is still under consideration by the Scottish Government. Environmental groups have strongly criticised the plan because of the climate pollution it will create and the fact that it will lock households into higher electricity bills linked to fossil fuels for decades to come.

The ministerial code is a collection of standards that must be adhered to to ensure integrity, accountability and transparency. It sets out how ministers should act in the handling of planning applications and states that, to make sure the planning system is fair, ministers “must do nothing which might be seen as prejudicial to that process”, including by meeting developers to discuss a proposal but not meeting all interested parties.

Research including analysing the lobbying register and FOIs by Friends of the Earth Scotland has uncovered:

• Several incidents in which Scottish Government ministers were briefed by civil servants to welcome and offer their support for the controversial Peterhead gas-burning power station application in meetings with the developers SSE and Equinor, including one minister being briefed ahead of a meeting with Equinor to “offer your support in any challenges faced” by the company.

• Ministers undermining the planning process by publicly speaking in favour of the project, including then Cabinet Secretary for Energy Michael Matheson providing a supportive press quote about the fossil fuel plant for an SSE press release.

• Former First Minister Humza Yousaf breached the code with his visit to the existing Peterhead power station in July 2023. The First Minister wore an SSE branded jacket as he posed for press photos and appeared in an SSE promotional video praising the company’s “plans for the future”. The Scottish Government tweeted about the event and issued a press release.

• Repeatedly meeting with developers while refusing to meet objectors. Scottish Government met 61 times with SSE and Equinor between February 2022, when the planning application was submitted, and December 2023 (equivalent to more than once a fortnight) but refused to meet with objectors saying it would be inappropriate to discuss “a live planning application”.

• The Scottish Government has no records, or couldn’t locate records, of another 16 meetings with SSE and Equinor: the public only know about them because of records kept by the developers themselves.

Friends of the Earth Scotland climate campaigner Alex Lee said: “These 28 breaches of the ministerial code show a deeply troubling pattern of behaviour right across the Scottish Government. Public concerns have been deliberately ignored to try and push through a climate damaging planning application in the interests of greedy energy companies.

“Ministers and civil servants have been caught out playing fast and loose with the rules, in favour of a polluting project that risks locking households into higher energy bills for decades to come.

“Our investigations show that the Scottish Government has treated the outcome of this planning application as a foregone conclusion right from the beginning and has failed to follow the planning process and assess the evidence objectively.

“First Minister John Swinney must get his government in order and stop listening to fossil fuel companies. Once this project is assessed fairly on its merits, the huge climate pollution and impact on home energy bills will mean the only rational conclusion will be a rejection.

“Workers and communities in the North East of Scotland need a credible transition plan that can move us to good green jobs in renewables, not a dodgy project built on the rotten foundations of carbon capture and backroom lobbying.”

SSE AGM protest calls out fossil fuel ‘greenwash’

Energy giant SSE faced protests outside its AGM in Perth today from people concerned about the company’s role in driving climate breakdown and fuel poverty.

The protests were prompted by SSE’s plans to build a new gas burning power station at Peterhead, despite the existing plant at that site already being Scotland’s biggest climate polluter. Friends of the Earth Scotland highlighted the fact that, despite the company’s marketing and green image, it owns 14 fossil fuel power stations and 60% of SSE’s energy generation capacity comes from burning fossil fuels.

Free to use, press quality photos will be available shortly at https://scot.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b5ad0d61b2a67d22c68bf7d8d&id=2a3d8e7b56&e=195fc3d780

Protesters spoke to shareholders attending the AGM urging them to challenge the company’s plans to build new fossil fuel power stations and force prepayment meters into homes.

Fuel Poverty Action, who also organised the demonstration, focused on the energy giant’s £2.4billion in profits last year whilst a third of households were forced into fuel poverty in Scotland. SSE continues to force-fit pre-payment meters on people in energy debt which ultimately causes people who use the least amount of energy to pay the most for it.

Other activists disrupted the AGM from the inside, interrupting the Board’s address and imploring SSE to drop their plans for more gas burning developments.

Over 40 climate groups recently wrote to the Scottish Government urging them to reject SSE’s planning application to build a new gas power station at Peterhead.

Friends of the Earth Scotland Oil and Gas Activism Organiser Freya Aitchison commented: “SSE are getting rich from burning gas to make electricity, and the company is plotting even more climate damage with its plans for a new gas power station at Peterhead. We’re at their AGM to tell the company’s shareholders that there is no future in fossil fuels.

“The Peterhead proposals would guarantee demand for gas, meaning that Scottish homes will spend the next 25 years paying sky high energy bills which are set by the international price of fossil fuels. Building new gas infrastructure would be a terrible deal for the Scottish public, lock in climate pollution and undermine the transition to renewable energy.

“SSE cannot continue to try and greenwash the fact that the majority of its energy generation capacity comes from fossil fuels. The climate movement has stopped big polluters in their tracks before – from the fracking industry, to the Cambo oil field and the Hunterston power station.”

Lucia Harrington, Organising Lead at Fuel Poverty Action, said: “SSE is a company that continues to profit from people’s poverty and continues to force-fit prepayment meters onto people in energy debt.

“This behaviour is what has led to hundreds of preventable deaths in Scotland and we are here to hold them to account.”

Electrical waste piled outside Scottish Parliament ahead of vote on new environmental law

CAMPAIGNERS piled electrical waste outside the Scottish Parliament ahead of today’s final debate on a new Circular Economy law. They say MSPs need to do more to improve the way electrical waste is managed and are calling for changes in the final version of the law.

The circular economy bill is being debated and voted on in the Scottish Parliament this week (Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 June). This is the last chance for MSPs to improve the bill.

The new law should bring in policies to create a circular economy in Scotland where materials are used sustainably and fairly. However, it’s been criticised for its lack of ambition and focus on disposal rather than reduction and reuse of products, which can lead to greater social and environmental benefits.

Friends of the Earth Scotland are campaigning for the circular economy bill to include a plan for the materials required in the transition away from fossil fuels, many of which are used in consumer electronics too.

Every mobile phone and laptop is powered by precious materials such as lithium, cobalt and copper. Inadequate waste management systems means that these materials are often thrown away rather than being reused or recycled. Less than 1% of lithium is recycled, despite it being required for electric vehicles.

Many of these materials come from mines in the Global South, including Chile, the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which exploit local communities, create pollution and increase carbon emissions.

The steel used in Scottish wind turbines is likely to include significant amounts of iron ore from Brazil, where there have been two major tailing dam disasters in the last decade. A 2019 disaster in Minas Gerais killed at least 244 people.

Scotland does not have a plan for how to manage these transition minerals. The Scottish Government’s draft Energy Strategy includes plans for electrifying vehicles but fails to consider where the lithium needed to do this will come from.

Kim Pratt, Circular Economy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland said: “The scale of electronic waste in this country is shocking. All of the waste that we’ve gathered today came from simply asking around – most of us have something sitting in a cupboard because we don’t know what to do with it.

“Electrical waste contains precious material which is lost when these items are thrown away. Scotland can’t afford to keep treating electrical products, and the precious materials they contain, as disposable.

“Reducing our consumption of the materials used to create these products, by increasing reuse and repair, is essential to reduce the harm being done to people and the environment. The new circular economy law also needs to include a plan for these minerals, which are required for our transition away from fossil fuels. If the law does this, it has the potential to have a big impact in creating a fairer and more sustainable future.”

Key facts about e-waste:

– In the UK, the average person generates 24kg of e-waste every year, that’s the second highest in the world, behind only Norway. The UK is on course to overtake Norway and become the world’s largest contributor to e-waste this year (2024). The global average is 7.3kg.
– Globally, e-waste has increased 21% in 5 years to over 50 million tonnes. The total value of the raw material dumped annually is estimated to be £46 billion. By 2030, it’s predicted the world will throw away nearly 75 million tonnes of e-waste.
– Only 17% of e-waste is recycled.
– There are, on average, 2 mobile phones for every person on the planet. Only 9% are recycled.
– A typical iPhone is estimated to house around 0.034g of gold, 0.34g of silver, and 0.015g of palladium. It also contains the less valuable but still significant aluminium (25g) and copper (around 15g).
– One tonne of iPhones would deliver 300 times more gold than a tonne of gold ore and 6.5 times more silver than a tonne of silver ore.

Campaigners urge First Minister: ‘Don’t Break Climate Promise’

Climate campaigners took their anger at the Scottish Government decision to scrap its 2030 climate targets to a protest outside Bute House last night. The protest called on the First Minister and his Government ‘not to break their climate promise’.

Organisers say that scrapping these targets means a weakening of climate action, a reduction in scrutiny on Ministers and is a ‘betrayal’ of those impacted by climate breakdown.

Speakers at the rally highlighted the impact extreme weather is already having on Scottish food production, as well endangering lives in climate vulnerable countries.

Protestors are taking their message directly to the First Minister’s residence because he must take responsibility for the Scottish Government’s failure to deliver on their climate commitments.

Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Climate Campaigner Caroline Rance said: “People are rightly angry that Humza Yousaf’s Government plans to break its climate promise and slow down action in this crucial decade. Climate science is clear that we cannot allow that to happen.

“The Scottish Government’s repeated failure to act has meant not only have they missed climate targets, but they have missed tangible opportunities to improve people’s lives through providing good public transport, decent home insulation and creating good green jobs.

“The First Minister must take responsibility for this colossal climate failure because the desperately weak policy package announced last week offers no reassurance that his Ministers are serious about getting us back on track.”

Landworkers’ Alliance Scotland Policy and Campaigns Coordinator Tara Wight, who spoke at the rally, commented: “The effects of climate change are already having a devastating impact on farming in Scotland with productive fields underwater, record lamb deaths this Spring and storm Babet last year causing the most drastic loss of crop value ever recorded.

“This has a big impact on our food system, increasing the need for carbon-heavy imports and driving up the cost of food at a time when people are already struggling to make ends meet.

“Farmers and crofters urgently need support to transition their practices to improve both climate resilience and mitigation yet the Scottish Government’s policies for climate-friendly agriculture are the least ambitious in the UK, and fall far behind the EU. This lack of action on climate change and just transition is a betrayal of our farming and crofting communities.”

Stop Climate Chaos Scotland (SCCS) Coalition Manager Becky Kenton-Lake commented: “Scotland’s target to reduce emissions by 75% by 2030 was based on our fair contribution to retaining a liveable planet.

“As the First Minister himself has said, rich nations failing to deliver on climate commitments would represent “catastrophic negligence“, and the Scottish Government’s lack of sufficient climate action to date represents a major breach of trust with the people of Scotland and communities around the world who have done least to cause the crisis but whose lives and livelihoods are already being destroyed.

“The range of largely re-heated measures announced by the Scottish Government are wholly inadequate and fall very significantly short of the transformational acceleration in action needed.”

Liz Murray, Head of Scottish Campaigns at Global Justice Now said, ““We’re at the rally today to urge the First Minister and the Scottish government not to backtrack on its climate commitments.

“The First Minister has in the past spoken out about the catastrophic negligence of rich countries’ failure to act on climate change, so he should be totally ashamed of his own government’s failure to take the action needed to meet its own targets.

“And rather than pulling out all the stops to get things back on track to meet those targets, the Scottish Government is now just going to move the goalposts. This is shameful.

“Climate change knows no borders. People who have had little or nothing to do with causing the climate emergency, from communities in the global south to marginalised communities in Scotland, are suffering its serious effects.

“In a climate emergency, letting itself off the hook is the wrong thing for the Scottish Government to do, and any claims it had to global leadership on climate change now have no credibility.”

Holyrood Fashion Show highlights need for circular economy

Climate and sustainability groups from across Scotland staged a fashion show of upcycled outfits outside the Scottish Parliament today (22 February), to call on MSPs to support the Circular Economy Bill that’s being debated soon.

Models took to the catwalk in outfits including a dress made of bike inner tubes to highlight that 65% of our clothing is made from fossil fuel-based plastic, a cape made from plastic bottles collected from beach litter, and an electric cable headdress to highlight the impacts of mining for metals and lack of repair opportunities for electronic waste in Scotland.

The new law could change the way we use materials, driving action to reduce the amount we take from nature by keeping materials in use for as long as possible.

The groups sought to remind MSPs that to create a circular economy, everyone in Scotland needs access to repair and reuse services, as well as high-quality recycling services. Campaigners highlighted that systematic change is needed from the Scottish Government to make all the products we buy more sustainable and ensure big businesses are required to clean up the products they sell.

There are many organisations across Scotland trying to tackle this issue at a grassroots level, and they are calling for greater support to deliver on action that brings down climate emissions and builds community.

Kim Pratt, circular economy campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “Valuing our materials properly is essential to reduce the environmental destruction we’re causing, and as we’ve seen today it can be the jumping off point for so much creativity and community.

“The Circular Economy Bill is an exciting opportunity for Scotland to make real progress and build on the great work that is already happening. Reuse and repair offer people the chance to make affordable and green choices but far too few people have access to these services and those providing them need better support.

“We are currently using materials in a way that is driving climate breakdown whether that is single use plastics, electronic gadgets that break too soon or fast fashion piling up in landfill. Around half of Scotland’s emissions are not tackled by our existing climate targets because they don’t include imports.

“If consumption targets were brought in under the new circular economy law, Scotland would finally start taking responsibility for its global impact.”

Kim Blasco, from Plastic-free Scotland Communities said: “Plastic-free communities throughout Scotland are striving to promote circular behaviour among local businesses and the wider public.

“People are hearing the message and behaviour change is happening, but not fast enough or at the scale necessary to tackle the urgent climate crisis. The Scottish Government must require businesses to embed circularity in the goods and services they provide, and a strong Circular Economy Bill is key to making this happen.”

Franciele Sobierai, Communities Reduce Reuse and Recycle Project Coordinator at Edinburgh & Lothians Regional Equality Council (ELREC) said: “With the climate crisis getting worse, the need for a strong circular economy bill increases.

“We must shift away from rampant consumerism and redirect our efforts towards stronger communities which reuse and repair organisations can offer.

“Reuse organisations need more support from the Scottish Government. These efforts play a pivotal role in protecting our environment and helping people make more sustainable choices.

“Creating inclusive, diverse communities is vital to the fight against climate change. By empowering marginalised groups on our society through networks such as those created by community reuse projects, we can create a path towards a more environmentally conscious and inclusive future.”

Lothian Pension Fund investing at least £350 MILLION in fossil fuel companies

Lothian Pension Fund has at least £350 million invested in the fossil fuel industry, according to new analysis by Platform and Friends of the Earth Scotland.

The Lothian Pension Fund, administered by Edinburgh City Council, is the second biggest fossil fuel investor of all the council pension funds in Scotland.

The City of Edinburgh Council voted to divest the fund from fossil fuels in November 2022, yet the fund managers have not enacted this request. It invests in some of the world’s biggest climate polluters, including Exxon Mobil, Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies and BP.

With virtually all oil and gas companies set to expand their operations, campaigners are calling on the Lothian Pension Fund to listen to councillors and stop funding fossil fuels.

Lothian Pension Fund administers the pension funds of almost 90,000 members from the four councils in the Lothians and 59 other employers, including Scottish Water, Edinburgh Napier University, VisitScotland and Heriot-Watt University.

Sally Clark, divestment campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “It’s unbelievable that despite clear direction from councillors, the Lothian Pension Fund is still investing this obscene amount of money in fossil fuel companies that are driving climate breakdown.

“Councils must play their part in protecting the long-term future of their employees by ending their support for oil and gas expansion and investing in building a cleaner, safer future for us all – but their attempts to do this are being blocked.

Joan Forehand, campaigner with Divest Lothian, said: “The economic and moral arguments against continuing investment in fossil fuel companies by the Lothian Pension Fund are overwhelming.

“In 2023 oil and gas companies doubled down on investing in the development of new fossil fuel projects, despite the stark warnings from climate scientists and the UN that this paves the way to catastrophic climate destabilisation and the resulting collapse of the economic systems on which future pensions depend.

“To protect the pensions of its members, the Lothian Pension Fund must join the growing number of pension funds divesting from these companies.”

Stephen Smellie, depute convenor at Unison Scotland, said: “Fossil fuels are bad for the environment and our retirement.

“These dirty deals threaten the future of our environment, and needlessly risk the retirements of the hundreds of thousands of Unison members that pay into local government pension schemes. To secure a future worth retiring into, schemes should respond to members’ calls to action and dump these dated fossil fuel assets.”

Across the UK, £16 billion of council pension funds is invested in the fossil fuel industry. Over 20% of UK councils now invest less than 1% of their fund into fossil fuels – a 10 fold increase since 2020, the last time analysis was conducted. Lothian Pension Fund was found to invest over 4% of its fund into fossil fuels.