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Sustainability

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Man with water carrier on dry plainQuakers have long sought an ordering of the world that respects the integrity of all of creation, and the equality of all people.

In 2009, Britain Yearly Meeting spoke out with a confident Quaker voice on climate change. We issued a public statement setting out our conviction that prevailing social and economic values have led to this crisis. We received enthusiastic support from almost 200 Quaker meetings up and down the country and this strong backing forms the basis of our ongoing work to bring about change.

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, says that when taken together, the world’s leading religions are the third largest investor in the global economy. Our potential influence in the battle against climate change is huge. We joined with other religious groups and the United Nations at a meeting at Windsor Castle to affirm the faiths’ commitment to action on environmental issues.

Our work on sustainability and peace will develop thanks to a grant from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. In 2010 we will launch an appeal to raise the necessary matched funding from meetings.

In 2009:

  • we published Responding to climate change, a briefing pack for Friends and others to learn about, reflect upon, and take action on climate change
  • Friends House joined the 10:10 campaign (to reduce carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010) and Britain Yearly Meeting committed to developing a seven-year plan to reduce our harmful impact on the environment
  • we began working with the Soil Association to achieve organic certification and received the Good Egg award for our commitment to use only cage-free eggs in Friends House restaurant and conference catering. We were the first church to receive this award
  • we conducted and disseminated research on the effects of climate on poorer people, particularly through our partnership with a local organisation, Gono Unnayan Prochesta, in Bangladesh
  • we held events to enable Quakers to consider the connections between the global economy, people and the environment
  • we launched Quakernomics (www.quaker.org.uk/quakernomics), a blog for debate about our economic system and sustainability

 
“Where we see crisis, we also see opportunity to remake society as a communion of people living sustainably as part of the natural world.”

A Quaker response to the crisis of climate change