To strengthen our planetary network, ZPI will feature newly affiliated groups.
Join us here on the Hive to explore some of the offerings of the organizations affiliated with ZPI.
Introducing a new ZPI affiliate group:
What is your organization’s name?
GreenFaith.
What type of Affiliate would you like to be identified as in our ZPI HIVE?
Focus Affiliate.
What is your mission?
Because the Earth and all people are sacred and at risk, GreenFaith is building a worldwide, multi-faith climate and environmental movement. Together, our members create communities to transform ourselves, our spiritual institutions, and society to protect the planet and create a compassionate, loving, and just world.
Where is your organization based?
New York (USA), Nairobi (Kenya), and Karlsruhe (Germany).
How many regular members do you serve?
40,000.
Tell us a bit about how the group was conceived?
We were formed in New Jersey in 1992 as a volunteer, multi-faith group addressing the link between religion and the environment. Over the years we have grown to work first locally, then nationally, and now internationally as a grassroots, multi-faith, climate justice activist organization.
Tell us about one exciting project, program, retreat, or other offerings you are currently working on?
We are supporting the development of GreenFaith Circles – local religiously-based climate action hubs – in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. There are more than 100 Circles that are campaigning against new fossil fuel projects, deforestation, and related financing, and in support of universal access to clean, affordable, reliable energy and green jobs that can lift people out of poverty while they build a sustainable and just future.
How do the Three Tenets inform your social engagement? Best to include a specific story or anecdote to illustrate.
Our work is based on the combination of the Three Tenets. All people benefit from a Not-Knowing approach to climate change – the crisis is so new and we all must recognize the insufficiency of our existing mindsets about it. This mind-opened perspective flows naturally to Bearing Witness and Taking action – which is exactly what we do in the campaigns and mobilizations that we participate in.
What is the most meaningful challenge your organization faces?
More and more religious people are concerned about climate change. However, most are not yet sensitized or mobilized to collectively speak on climate justice issues and often assume that this is too technical a subject or a political matter that should be left for the scientists and the state. GreenFaith helps diverse religious people develop skillful means of putting their beliefs into action for the planet.
Your main website URL:
Main contact’s info:
Rev. Fletcher Harper, Executive Director, +1-201-390-0094, fletcher@greenfaith.org.
The Rev. Fletcher Harper is GreenFaith’s Executive Director. A pioneer of the global religious environmental movement, he helps spearhead the faith-based fossil fuel divestment movement, organizes faith turnouts at major climate mobilizations, and is a co-founder of Shine, an international campaign that supports women and community-led renewable energy access initiatives in Africa and India. He is the author of GreenFaith: Mobilizing God’s People to Protect the Earth.
