Faith Regen Conference on Eco-Pilgrimage: Towards Sustainable Practices

As part of Climate Week, Britain’s biggest climate change campaign, the Faith Regen Foundation organized an interfaith conference increasing the sustainability of pilgrimage.  It was featured members interfaith communities, multi faith charities and environmental NGOs.

The role of faith communities in preventing climate change is growing increasingly important as increasing populations, resource use and climate change has placed many environments under stress.

The conference featured discussions the responsibility of faith communities to promote environmental lessons in their teachings and the impacts of pilgrimages on the environment and how they contribute towards climate change on local and international scales.

For example in 2010 approximately 100 million plastic bottles were left on the Hajj site, creating a huge amount of litter. Pilgrims in particular have a responsibility to the environments and cultures that they travel through to minimize the impact they have upon them.

Some of the methods that were discussed included reducing the amount of waste produced by pilgrims, such as switching from bottled water to tap water both during pilgrimage and at home. Or increasing the sustainability of buildings of worship by increasing their insulating and recycling rain water to water the grounds. Another was promoting the use of recycling where possible and disposing of litter responsibly when not.