Faith and Climate Change Project - Winner of a Green Communtity Heroes award 2009
Faith and Climate Change Project - Winner of a Green Communtity Heroes award 2009
Award scheme
Green Community Heroes 2009
Award
Urban winner
Name
Faith and Climate Change Project
Organisation
Faith and Climate Change is hosted within the Birmingham Friends of the Earth group.
Summary
The Faith and Climate Change Project (FCC) works with places of worship and faith communities in Birmingham and throughout the West Midlands to support them in environmental and sustainable activities that will ultimately tackle climate change.
The group was set up three years ago, with support from the city council.
The aims
FCC aims help and support people of faith, places of worship and faith communities from the West Midlands looking to respond to current environmental challenges.
The solutions
The Faith and Climate Change Project:
- Works with networks such as Birmingham Council of Faiths, Birmingham Faith Leaders, Islam Awareness Week, Eco Congregations, the Sikh Environment Network and West Midlands Faith Forum.
- Works with all 11 recognised faith groups within Birmingham and is explicitly multi-faith in its delivery.
- Brings together a wide range of organisations in Birmingham to address environmental issues in places of worship and in faith communities.
- Offers help and support, providing resources, time and energy, advice, training courses, speakers and invitations to a variety of events and workshops.
- Has an active steering group, with members taking on responsibility for different projects.
- Develops strong one-to-one relationships and to cater to the needs of individual groups.
- Has a project called Faith Ambassadors for Climate Change, which provides training and support to help volunteers champion carbon reduction schemes within their communities.
- Is also developing a faith-based energy services company and is promoting the use of local organic food through its Faith in Food initiative.
- Organised several local and regional events including "Believing in our Environment" with Birmingham Faith Leaders and a Climate Change Conference creating a declaration for people of faith.
- Supported individuals of faith to create projects within their own faith communities.
- Provided environmental awareness training for people of faith.
- Runs an annual Organic Iftar for breaking the Ramadan fast.
- Spoke at Environment Agency summit, developed regional network and run workshops at a variety of workshops.
- Is now actively seeking to replicate its successful methodology.
- Shares good practice from places of worship, community groups and individuals.
- Writes a blog to provide project updates and we're finding that Twitter is a great way to network with groups and organisations from around the country.
The results
FCC brings together six faith groups from 19 places of worship, representing combined active congregations of about 550,000.
At their meeting house in Cotteridge, the Quakers have cut emissions by 40% through a solar hot water heating system, an air sourced heat pump and other measures.
A group of Muslims have been round to look at the Quakers' heating system. And a solar water heating system is being installed at a mosque in Moseley.
More than 300 people from the six faith groups have attended joint training days to learn about energy efficiency and audits.
Learning points
- Developing personal relationships has been an important part of the process of collecting monitoring data from the places of worship involved in the project
- Partnerships with faith organisations enable us to demonstrate our commitment and lend us credibility. For example, we worked with local groups to deliver activities during Islam Awareness Week - this kind of initiative shows that we want to be genuine, long-term partners.
- We always consider whether a project will be at 'snail pace' or 'hare pace'. This helps us to work out the level of resources it'll require and who would be best placed to take the lead on the project.
- Meeting people in your community and making new friends is at the heart of our project.
- Exploring how online tools can help with raising awareness and communicating with partners. "There are a lot of free tools out there so it's an ongoing process of learning and experimenting
- FCC's recognised success in creating such partnerships stems from using climate change as a non-contentious route to bringing together people of all faiths.
SWM comment
We commend this project for raising awareness of the climate change issues and we're pleased that all of the recognised faith groups in Birmingham are getting involved in lowering their carbon emissions.
Contact
For more information on the work of please visit the Birmingham Friends of the Earth website. If you are interested in joining the project and receiving monthly e-news, then please email Maud Grainger at maud@faithandclimatechange.org.