Faith and Sustainability
Science-based Targets for Faith
Advancing climate change mitigation and inspiring action by faith communities around the world.
Faith-based organizations facilitate an extensive number of services beyond traditional spiritual guidance, from healthcare and education to migration and poverty alleviation. These services require faith-based organizations to operate a variety of physical assets including buildings, land and vehicles that contribute both directly and indirectly to climate change.
By understanding how their operations contribute to environmental pollution, faith-based organizations can mobilize their assets, resources and membership to reduce these outcomes and help build a positive climate future. One proven way to do this is by measuring, monitoring and reducing operational emissions through the Science-based Targets (SBT) framework. This approach allows organizations to consistently and transparently manage environmental risk, identify reduction opportunities, publicly report on progress towards climate goals and contribute to the global transition to net-zero.
World Resources Institute and Georgetown University established a partnership to incubate and develop the Science-Based Targets for Faith project. The project is built on WRI’s leadership in establishing global greenhouse gas accounting standards and science-based climate target setting practices, as well as Georgetown’s mission to advance serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures and beliefs. By facilitating an institutional standard for measuring and reducing faith-based organizations’ emissions, this project aims to bring a sizeable sector of the population into the climate conversation like never before.
If you represent a faith-based organization interested in measuring the organizational climate impacts of your operations, we encourage you to contact any of our featured experts.
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