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Each school day, children from the local Asian population in this Lancashire town would assemble before making their way to school. It was the 1970s, a period when extremist organizations were gaining strength, and these children were the offspring of immigrant laborers who had moved to Britain in the previous decade to address employment gaps.

Included in this group was the young Asad, who had relocated to the northern town with his family from Pakistan at the age of four. “We walked in groups,” he explains, “because it was dangerous to walk alone. The little ones in the middle, older children on the outside, as there was a threat of violence on the way.”

Things were no better at school. Students would give fascist salutes and shout racist insults at them. A few distributed extremist publications without concealment at school. Students of color regularly, at break times, we secured ourselves into a classroom, due to the risk of assault.”

“I initiated conversations to everybody,” he notes. Collectively, they resolved to oppose the teachers who had not kept them safe by jointly deciding not to attend. “declaring that the reason was the schools didn't provide security for us.” This became Rehman’s early introduction of activism. When he became part of broader anti-racist campaigns that were formed across the country, it influenced his views on society.

“We began defending our community which taught me that abiding lesson that has stayed with me: our strength multiplies as a united group than when we’re individual. You need organisations to coordinate efforts and a common purpose to hold you together.”

This summer, he took on the role of head of the environmental charity Friends of the Earth. For decades, the familiar face of environmental crisis was the iconic bear on melting ice. Now, discussing global heating while ignoring inequality and discrimination is widely considered highly inappropriate. Rehman positioned himself at the forefront of this shift.

“I took this job because of the scale of the crisis out there,” he told reporters on the sidelines an environmental protest outside Downing Street last month. “It’s an interconnected crisis of climate, social injustice, of financial structures which are biased the wealthy. It’s ultimately about fairness.

“And there is only one organisation that has always centred equity – green rights and environmental equality – that’s Friends of the Earth.”

Boasting over 250,000 supporters and community teams, The organization (Scotland has its own) is the UK’s biggest conservation movement. In the year to summer 2024, it spent over ten million pounds on campaigns including judicial reviews to government policy to local campaigns changing municipal practices in public spaces.

Yet it – perhaps unfairly – gained a profile as a less radical organisation in the activist community. Focusing on awareness campaigns instead of confrontational tactics.

The selection of someone focused on inequality with his background may represent an effort to shed that image.

It's not the first time he's been involved with the charity.

Following university, Rehman continued advocating for equality, engaged with a community organization during a period when the far right had influence in east London.

“There were initiatives, handling individual cases, and it was rooted in the community,” he recalls. “I gained experience in grassroots activism.”

But not content beyond addressing racism on the streets and from the state together with peers, aimed to elevate the fight against racism within a rights framework. This led him to the advocacy group, where over the next decade he partnered with global south activists to demand a new approach regarding the interpretation of freedoms. “Back then, the organization didn't focus on economic and social rights. they only campaigned political freedoms,” he notes.

Towards the close of the 1990s, his activism at the organization connected him to various global equity groups. Then they came together as anti-globalization activists against neoliberalism. What he was to learn from them would affect the rest of his career.

“I traveled and working with these people, and everybody you spoke to discussed how bad climate was, how farming was becoming impossible, creating refugees,” he says. “It struck me! Every gain through activism might be lost because of environmental collapse. This issue that is happening, known as global warming – however few addressed it like that.”

This led Rehman to begin working within the organization years ago. At the time, the majority of green groups were talking about environmental issues as a distant threat.

“This network stood out as the sole activist body that then officially broke with what I’d call the rest of the environment movement. pioneering creating the climate justice movement,” he declares.

His efforts centered to bring the voices of the developing world during negotiations. It did not always earn him friends. In a particular instance, he shares, after a meeting with officials and environmental NGOs, a minister contacted his boss demanding he call off his assertive tactics. He didn't reveal who made the call.

“People just felt: ‘What gives him authority who doesn’t follow [the] same rules?’ Understand, green issues are important, discussion is possible. [But] I saw it as addressing inequality, a fight for human rights … fundamentally political.”

Justice narratives found acceptance within green movements. Simultaneously occurred. with justice-oriented groups engaging with ecological challenges.

This led to the charity labor-aligned {