Greenfaith India

Since 2015, GreenFaith has worked with Indian interfaith partners from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jain, Sikh and Christian communities.

• We gathered 20 young Indian spiritual leaders in Rome for our 2015 Emerging Leaders Multi-Faith Climate Convergence, a week long training for representatives from 30 countries. Participants led an interfaith climate march into St. Peter’s Square, where they were welcomed by the Pope. The march received global media coverage.

• With The Bhumi Project, we organized a 2015 multi-faith People’s Pilgrimage to sacred sites, renewable energy installations, and locations ravaged by typhoons across India, raising awareness about the urgent need for climate action.

• Our India Organizer worked in 2016-17 with partners from many faiths to hold events in Delhi and Mumbai, attracting coverage in The Times of India. GreenFaith India partnered with Eco Sikh and Islamic Relief India for co-organising these community events.

• In 2018, we helped coordinate ten events around India highlighting the importance of climate-friendly lifestyles as a cornerstone of an ecological civilization.

In collaboration with our Indian partners, GreenFaith is developing plans to establish GreenFaith India as the country’s first multi-faith environmental organization. We are consulting with trusted colleagues to invite input, share ideas, and establish plans for 2019 and beyond. Our conversations to date have surfaced project ideas in urban forestry, waste management, and more. Preliminary efforts are underway in two areas.

Shine: Renewable Energy for All

GreenFaith is a founding partner of Shine, a new campaign to dramatically increase investment in and support for renewable energy development in regions of the world that lack energy access. While India has made significant progress in this area, there are still more than 200 million Indians who lack access to modern forms of energy. For the sake of their well-being and to protect the Earth, they must get access to energy from clean, affordable, reliable sources.

In late 2018, GreenFaith and partners issued a groundbreaking report at the British House of Commons—entitled Rise to Shine: The Role of Indian Religious Institutions in Closing the Energy Access Gap—exploring the ways that religious groups in India have started deploying renewable energy.

The research highlighted pockets of excellence throughout the country from a variety of religious institutions that utilize solar technology to power their places of worship and their facilities. GreenFaith is exploring ways we can work with these partners to increase access to renewable energy across India.

RISE TO SHINE

GreenFaith India Fellowship Program

More and more people from diverse spiritual and religious backgrounds are committed to caring for the Earth, and need training and a supportive community to realise their potential. For more than 10 years, GreenFaith has operated its Fellowship Program, the world’s longest-running religious-environmental education programme. We are now exploring opportunities to launch a GreenFaith India Fellowship Programme to build a community of Indian spiritual environmental leadership.

As a truly interfaith, international coalition for environmental leadership, GreenFaith is committed to helping nurture and support religiously- and spiritually-grounded ecological work in India. We recognize our role as conveners and supporters for the broadest possible range of faithful voices, and we aim for our programming to include representatives from Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim, Jain, Zoroastrian, and many other traditions.

By working together, we believe we can create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. By supporting Indian leaders in their own communities, we believe we can help people act locally while thinking globally. By lifting up our partners in India as a shining example for the future, we believe we can change the world.