- Conference
- 2025 National Retired Members Conference
- Date
- 3 June 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Amongst all the issues affecting older people and pensioners, green issues seem to have taken a back seat. At the 2024 Retired Members Conference a workshop highlighted how climate change is impacting badly on retired members as a result of extreme weather such as drought, floods, higher temperatures and fires and leading to the need for better home insulation, cooling and energy measures.
Winter 2024 was particularly wet and stormy, with widespread flooding. March and April 2025 were particularly dry, sparking wild fires, and this trend is likely to get worse.
We welcome the news that 2026 will be a Green Unison Year of Action. Unison already has an environmental section, Green Unison, but sadly this has not been hugely visible to our retired members.
Conference instructs National Retirement Members Committee to make Green Unison considerably more relevant to retired members by:
1. Publicising the activities of Green Unison to retired members and retired members committees, and supporting events, training and other activities on this matter
2. Producing a retired members action plan to be part of the Year of Action, to be developed with the involvement of Retired Members.