by | Jun 26, 2025

Reflections from a SMK National Campaigner Awards winner: Sarah Finch

In this blog, Sarah Finch, an outstanding environmental campaigner, reflects on being the winner of this year’s Campaigner of the Year Award at the SMK National Campaigner Awards 2025.

I had a big injection of optimism last week when I attended the Sheila McKechnie Foundation National Campaigner Awards ceremony. With constant reminders of the hate and division around us, it was a reminder that there are many, many good people working hard to make things better.

We met and heard from inspiring people who won awards for their brilliant work across all sorts of fields – from stopping asylum seekers being deported, to making voting accessible to people with learning disabilities, to hijacking ad space to demand an end to the bombardment by junk food advertising, and more.

I was particularly moved to hear from people who have been driven by their own losses to tackle ingrained societal issues. These included families who have lost loved ones due to gambling-related suicide who are now tackling the political and regulatory failings that contributed to those deaths. And Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered teenager Stephen, who received a Long-Term Achievement Award for her many years fighting racism in the police and judiciary system. She said she is determined that her son should not be forgotten, and his senseless murder should not be the end of the story.

Clearly the award winners are just the tip of the iceberg of the UK’s campaigning community. Often this vital work goes unseen, it is great that the Sheila McKechnie Foundation celebrates the value of what we do through these annual awards.

You can read about all the winners here

Campaigner of the Year

I was honoured to receive the Campaigner of the Year Award for the legal fight on climate I brought on behalf of the Weald Action Group.

It started as a campaign to stop a local oil drilling project and ended up changing the UK government’s entire approach to assessing the climate impacts of new oil and gas developments.

Thanks to our efforts, several other, and larger, oil and gas developments have had their permissions overturned. These include the controversial giant Rosebank oil field in the North Sea. Rosebank was permitted by the last government in 2023 but ruled unlawful in light of my win. The oil company Equinor will now have to reapply for permission under new far more robust rules.

The ruling in my case clarified that decision-makers deciding on any kind of development have to properly consider all of its likely effects on the environment. This is affecting sectors beyond oil and gas too. For example, this month a judge overturned planning permission for an intensive poultry unit in the River Severn catchment because the applicants had failed to consider the effects of spreading the polluting manure on surrounding land.

All of us in the Weald Action Group are extremely proud that our campaign has had such profound and wide-ranging impacts.

Of course this is not the end of the story. We still have to make sure that decision-makers reach the right conclusions when they consider applications. The fact that they are now compelled to factor in the full climate impact goes a long way to making sure this happens, but the fossil fuel industry and its supporters will still argue that other perceived benefits can outweigh the climate harm. The Rosebank decision will be back on the government’s desk before long and will be the first big test of its commitment to climate action.

Fortunately, there are many dedicated campaigners working to make sure the government does the right thing – on this and many other issues. The Awards ceremony was testament to the energy and creativity of our community.

Read more about Sarah’s campaign

Sarah Finch

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