With the worsening crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and industrial levels of pollution, the need for urgent environmental action is clear.
The Clean and Green Manifesto, developed in consultation with civil society groups, identifies five areas of consensus where anti-corruption efforts could help tackle environmental harm to promote an economy that is both clean and green.
More than 30 NGOs have backed the manifesto, urging the UK to take stronger action against corruption, illicit finance and weak corporate accountability that enable environmental harm.
The manifesto launched in parliament on 12 March 2026 sets out a clear challenge to government: if the UK is serious about a just transition, it must do more to confront the financial and political systems that allow environmental abuse to continue.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, RAID’s research has shown that the global race for critical minerals is too often accompanied by pollution, weak oversight and serious harm to frontline communities. In Beneath the Green, RAID documented grave concerns about the human rights impacts of toxic pollution around some of the DRC’s largest copper-cobalt mines supplying many of the world’s leading electric vehicle companies. Those realities cannot be separated from the way critical minerals are sourced, traded and financed.
Corruption is not peripheral to environmental harm – it is often what enables it.
The manifesto makes an important point: corruption is not peripheral to environmental harm – it is often what enables it. From illegal mining and pollution to the misuse of climate finance and opaque corporate structures, corruption helps shield harmful practices from scrutiny and accountability. As demand for transition minerals grows, that risk is becoming harder to ignore.
The manifesto calls for stronger enforcement on bribery and money laundering, tougher protection for whistleblowers, action against SLAPPs, greater corporate transparency, and reforms to stop vested interests from derailing climate action.
It also calls for mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence – an essential step to ensure that communities affected by corporate abuse have a real chance of holding companies accountable and securing remedy.
The transition to a low-carbon economy cannot be called clean if it is built on pollution, impunity and harm pushed onto communities with the least power. The UK has legal and regulatory tools at its disposal. The question is whether it will use them.
Read the new Clean and Green Manifesto here.
Visit our DRC work here.
Photo Credit: RAID