‘Faith Communities Go Green’ supports sustainability in faith-based organizations
CINCINNATI, OH – February 1, 2022 – Two regional nonprofits are collaborating on a new environmental initiative. Green Umbrella, the largest collective action environmental organization in the region, and EquaSion, the largest interfaith organization in the region, have formed a new collaboration to support regional faith communities in their efforts to be more environmentally sustainable. The new collaborative is called Faith Communities Go Green.
Faith Communities Go Green, originally an Impact Team within Green Umbrella, was founded to partner with religious communities to create a more sustainable and equitable future for all by mobilizing their moral voice to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change.
“This collaboration is another way that we are living out our mission of ‘Compassion through Action,’” said Chip Harrod, executive director of EquaSion. “Actively working to prioritize the health of our environment is essential to prioritizing the health of our communities. We are grateful to Green Umbrella for contributing its leadership and guidance to this initiative.”
EquaSion is a non-partisan civic organization supporting interfaith dialogue and collaboration. It works to develop educational and community service programming to foster greater understanding, respect, compassion, inclusion, and engagement for all people and faith communities in Greater Cincinnati and beyond. EquaSion sponsors the Cincinnati Festival of Faiths and A Mighty Stream (to address racism) and many smaller interfaith projects.
Green Umbrella serves as the regional sustainability alliance of Greater Cincinnati, with hundreds of member organizations and individuals passionate about enhancing the environmental health and vitality of our region. Green Umbrella leads collaboration, incubates ideas and catalyzes solutions that create a resilient, sustainable region for all where sustainability is woven into our ways of life. Green Umbrella oversees the Midwest Regional Sustainability Summit, the Cincinnati 2030 District, Tri-State Trails, Great Outdoor Weekend, the Greater Cincinnati Regional Food Policy Council, the Common Orchard Project and several other collaborative teams focused on environmental quality and climate change issues.
“We are excited to support Faith Communities Go Green as it matures as an interfaith collaborative. Bringing EquaSion into the work will be key to its ongoing success,” says Ryan Mooney-Bullock, executive director of Green Umbrella. “Thanks to the passion and hard work of the committed volunteers of the team, individuals of all ages from 15 religions/denominations and over 50 congregations are in dialogue and planning interventions to help religious communities step up their environmental stewardship. There is so much more growth to come as congregations learn how to start talking about and acting on their care for creation values.”
The new collaboration will combine the strengths of the two nonprofits with the work that has been done over the last year by Faith Communities Go Green to engage communities from all the faith traditions in our region to work more effectively to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change. All faith traditions have caring for creation and the natural world as part of their doctrine. How they actually live this moral imperative is the question Faith Communities Go Green will help them address. Combining the extensive interfaith network of EquaSion and the expertise and resource base of Green Umbrella will provide the Greater Cincinnati region with a new powerful moral voice working on behalf of the environment. For more information visit Green Umbrella at www.greenumbrella.org or EquaSion at www.equasion.org.