During the week of World Social Work Day, IFSW Europe President Ruth Allen and Zandrea Stewart, a social work leader and developer from the UK, consider how we can integrate understanding of climate and environment change challenges into social work practice across Europe. This invokes the importance of a ‘glocal’ (global and local) and place-based approach to practice to benefit individuals and communities. It also includes encouraging positive engagement with the natural world, promoting care for nature within communities for reciprocal benefit. This may be an important way to overcome the sense of powerlessness that arises from the threats and realities of climate and environmental change at scale – and the inadequacy of international action.
This blog draws on the wisdom of the IFSW Europe members steering group and work of IFSW colleagues who have promoted eco-social perspectives over many years. It also draws on the IFSW global Peoples Charter for an Eco-Social World. Get in touch on this and other matters via
The role of social workers
Social work is rooted in protection of rights and support for change and progress – often in messy and complicated situations. It is also about holding on to hope and optimism when situations may seem hopeless to people in the midst of difficulties. Belief in the strength and potential of people to make change, and the power of people acting together, is core to who and what we are as social rights professionals.
The global challenge of climate and environmental degradation is huge – and feels overwhelming for many. It is unjust in its impacts, affecting the poorest and most at risk people across the world the most; people with fewer resources and options; people with care and support needs; people in poor or no housing; people directly reliant on the environment for their means to live; people with no safe way of relocating from areas hit by environmental disasters.
Social workers have a vital and urgent role to play in helping the world adjust to the inevitability of climate and environmental changes, in our own nations and internationally. This includes:
- protecting and advocating for the rights of people most impacted, marginalised and at risk
- developing practices that take account environmental factors and how they affect people at local and wider levels,
- recognising the different and common impacts on people of all ages, genders, ethnicities and other characteristics
- speaking up for the preservation and careful stewardship of the natural world at local and global levels.
If ever there was a reason for embracing ‘glocal’ social work, the existential challenge of climate and environmental change is it – and should be an ethical and practical imperative for social work.
Place-based working
A place-based and community approach is important in framing social work’s role for the future in addressing environmental challenges. While most of us spend increasing amounts of time living ‘in’ virtual spaces, we also live in real ‘places’ affected by (for instance) air and water quality, the availability and accessibility or not) of green spaces for recreation and pause, the presence of cooling trees or heat-island car parks and so on.
Social work practice in the future may embrace the evidence of the wellbeing impacts of being involved with activities that protect and celebrate the best of the natural environment – in cities, towns and rural areas – enhancing wellbeing and social connection through (g)local attention and reciprocal care for what really matters in the places we live.
Learning from around the world
IFSW encourages social workers everywhere to look beyond national boundaries to learn from others, sometime in surprising places. We can take inspiration from indigenous communities around the world on environmental protection and many other matters.
In Europe we learn particularly from the Sami people in northern Scandinavia whose traditions of environmental stewardship and reverence for nature provides an insight into how we could be collectively motivated to protect and work with the nature in our midst. From the Sami we also see writ large the impact of climate change on ‘traditional’ ways of life and it may shed light on what is happening in our own societies; the practical and emotional losses and the urgency of standing up against big business and big politics that often ignores the meaning of the natural environment for communities.
IFSW Europe has been raising awareness and exploring the implications of climate and environmental change for social work for over five years. The triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – continues to escalate as traditional big business and many global political actors backslide and deny the necessity of reducing carbon emissions and preserving the natural world. Its not all bad news, with progress made
The regional conferences in Oslo and Alta, Norway in 2025 were key moments for the European social work community to reflect and learn, bringing together over 600 delegates and hundreds of presentations and workshops. This showcased the evolution of rich, vital thinking and practice that is emerging in our profession, and which is beginning to be captured in social work writing and research.
Diverse topics included promoting the important role of social workers in crises and disasters, the importance of nature and green space in healing and wellbeing, the structural inequalities of the impact of climate change, the deep and distinctive value of indigenous knowledge, connection to land and its preservation. These and many more themes brought to life not only the challenges we face, but the positive actions we can and need to take as a profession.
Next steps
IFSW Europe is continuing to work with urgency on the importance of developing eco-social work practices, promoting eco-social justice and developing our knowledge and practice guidance resources for the future.
We are working with a steering group of members to take this forward, supporting initiatives underway at national and local levels, building proposals for further research, developing European-wide guidance for social workers later this year – and making sure this vital, existentially important topic grows within European social work.
We would love to hear from you if you want to be involved. Get in touch via