Faith-based organizations (FBOs) are essential contributors towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It is increasingly recognized that faith leaders and faith-based organizations (FBOs) are essential contributors towards attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and addressing environmental and climatic crises. Acknowledging this, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launched the Faith for Earth Initiative to strategically engage with FBOs, mobilize greater faith-inspired environmental action, scale up faith actors’ capacities, and catalyze greater synergies between them and other stakeholders.
This short, self-paced, e-learning course, focusing on sustainable lifestyles, forms part of this commitment. Humans are overexploiting natural resources to satisfy their needs and wants, often overlooking or not understanding the
damage caused. This behavior, tied to dominant socioeconomic systems, is devastating to our planet, with widespread environmental degradation occurring globally. People must adopt more sustainable lifestyles to reduce both individual and society’s use of natural resources to minimize our collective environmental footprint (bearing in mind that this responsibility is not shared equally). Fully addressing this issue requires the engagement of all sectors of society, with this course focusing on the role of faith actors, drawing on their particular qualities and comparative advantages.
.TARGET AUDIENCE AND FOCUS
This course is designed for religious leaders, faith-based organizations, civil society, non-governmental organizations, UN agencies, other multilateral
institutions, government officials, policy and decision-makers, and individuals interested in this subject. Whilst the focus is on faith actors, faith perspectives, and faith-led action, this course seeks to contribute to building synergies among different stakeholders, highlighting the value of engaging with faith actors in addressing this challenge.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
At the end of this course, participants will:
• Understand how unsustainable consumption patterns and lifestyles are driving climate
change and causing immense environmental degradation around the world.
• Know different ways and strategies to address unsustainable lifestyles
and reduce environmental footprints, emphasizing the role of the UN system.
• Recognise different faith perspectives on living in moderation, avoiding greed and
excess, and how these principles can be embraced to reduce environmental footprints.
• Have seen examples of faith-led initiatives addressing the issue, where inspiration can
be drawn.
• Have guidelines, resources, and strategies for faith actors to reduce, and inspire others
to reduce, their consumer habits and live more sustainably
COURSE GOALS
The goals of this course are to:
• Build the capacities of faith actors and outline the linkages between faith and lifestyles, demonstrating the roles faith can play in
addressing the issue.
• Have participants end the course with a better understanding of how they can reduce their environmental impact and carbon footprint.
• Help contribute to the attainment of SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production – as well as SDGs 10, 11 and 13
READING REQUIREMENT
-ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RELIGION FOR THE SDGs See Video
Religion and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Participants must also support their studies and understanding with religious courses from the free Graduate Theological Union courses.
WRITING REQUIREMENT
-Theological Reflection on Climate Change - 20 %
-Bible Discussion at Local Church on Sustainable Lifestyle -20 %*
-Book Review -20 %
-A Final Project Paper -40%
Details and Directions
-All assignments should be written in APA or MLA style and emailed to Stt.George's Council 2 months after enrollment in this course.
-For a refresher on Theological Reflection see here or the Pastoral Circle: “See, Judge, Act”
- The Bible discussion on sustainable Lifestyle should be between one and a half and two hours long. The Bible discussion should be done in the first month after enrolling in this course to add content to the final project.
-The Book Report should be double-spaced. and follow this format here.
- The Final Project Paper should take a faith-based sustainable developmental approach to solve an issue in the church or community of the church. It should be double-spaced, 40 pages including a bibliography. It should include the course code (HUM 1500) and the name of the code (Faith and Sustainable Lifestyles). See a sample specimen here:
A Certificate of Completion will be issued to participants who achieve a minimum of 50 % in the grading. Those who achieve a total score of 70% and above will receive the 3 academic credits.
For more information, kindly contact the instructor.
