Climate change

Grainger plc and ors v Nicholson

The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 cover not just religious but also “philosophical” beliefs. In Grainger plc and ors v Nicholson, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has concluded that a belief in man-made climate change could constitute a 'philosophical belief” for the purposes of the regulations.

Basic facts

Mr Nicholson worked for Grainger plc until 31 July 2008 when he was dismissed from his position as Head of Sustainability on grounds of redundancy. He claimed that his dismissal was unfair and contrary to the 2003 regulations because of his strongly held philosophical beliefs about climate change and the environment.

Tribunal decision

The tribunal said its job was not to analyse his beliefs as such or to judge their “validity” by some objective standard, but to decide whether they fell within the regulations.

The employment judge decided that Mr Nicholson’s beliefs about climate change did amount to a “philosophical belief” as he “has settled views about climate change, and acts upon those views in the way in which he leads his life. In my judgment, his belief goes beyond mere opinion, such as might be held on some aspects of climate change, such as whether it is environmentally desirable to travel by air."

EAT decision

The EAT said that it had to decide how far, if at all, the “belief” had to be similar to a religious belief to satisfy the regulations and what, if any, limits should be placed on the words “philosophical belief”.

It identified the following criteria from rulings of the European Convention on Human Rights and other decisions:

• The belief must be genuinely held
  It must be a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint
  It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour
  It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance
  It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, not be incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others.

It then added that the belief:

• should have a similar status or cogency to a religious belief
  could be a one-off (in that it did not govern the entirety of the person’s life), that was not necessarily shared by others if it was likely that others did share it, such as pacifism or vegetarianism
  did not need to constitute or "allude to a fully-fledged system of thought", as long as it satisfied the criteria above

Relying on these qualifications, the EAT indicated that if established, Mr Nicholson’s alleged philosophical belief in anthropogenic climate change would most likely be characterised as a political belief. That, however, was no reason to exclude it from the scope of the regulations, as long as it was genuinely held. This approach would not allow people holding racist or homophobic political philosophies to succeed, however, as such views would not satisfy the criterion of being "worthy of respect in a democratic society."

The EAT therefore upheld the tribunal’s decision that Mr Nicholson’s asserted belief was capable of being a “belief” for the purposes of the 2003 regulations, but that, unlike religious belief, it would have to be subjected to ”evidence and cross-examination directed [as] to the genuineness of the belief”.