From Faith Statements to Faith Stakeholders – The Growth of the Faith Environment Movement Worldwide | by Martin Palmer

Special Lecture of CCHU9014 Spirituality, Religion and Social Change

From Faith Statements to Faith Stakeholders – The Growth of  the Faith Environment Movement Worldwide

Date/Time:
March 22, 2023, 16:30 – 18:20 (HK time)
Language: English

Venue: Knowles Building 223, The Univerisity of Hong Kong

Registration is required (except for CCHU9014 students): https://bit.ly/2023March22

ABSTRACT
The world’s faiths run 50% of all schools; a third of all universities; more than a third of all medical facilities; own about 8% of the habitable surface of the planet; and are probably the fifth largest investing group in the world. In 1986 at the request of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh as International president of WWF, Martin Palmer organised the first ever meeting between the world’s major faiths and the environmental movement. Nearly forty years on, every major faith in the world has created environmental statements based on their  beliefs and teachings. Since then, hundreds of thousands of temples, mosques, churches etc now run environmental projects. The UN has described the faith environment movement as  “the largest civil society environmental movement in the world.”
But faith groups aren’t just moral voices – they are also direct stakeholders. In 2019 The Duke of Edinburgh and Martin Palmer founded Faithinvest to work with all the major faiths on helping them be Faith-Consistent in their Investments. Four years on, many faiths are now reviewing their investment policies and demanding better environmental and sustainable opportunities to put their teachings into practice through their assets and investments.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Martin Palmer is co-founder with HRH The late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh of the Alliance on Religions and Conservation (ARC), and founding President and CEO of Faithinvest. He is a Fellow of the Club of Rome and Special Advisor to many faith networks as well as to the UN and World Bank.

Martin studied Theology, Religious Studies and Chinese at Cambridge (1973-6) after a year as a volunteer in Hong Kong from 1972 -3 where he learnt to read Classical Chinese and speak Cantonese. Martin is a regular contributor to BBC programmes and has written over twenty books on faiths. He is one of the foremost translators of Chinese Classics, including the Dao De Jing, the Yijing and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, most of these for Penguin Classics.

He is an active Anglican Lay Preacher and is married to the writer and former SCMP journalist Victoria Finlay.

ORGANIZERS

Asian Religious Connections Research Cluster (ASIAR), HKIHSS, HKU

Center of Buddhist Studies, HKU

Faith and Global Engagement, HKIHSS, HKU

The New Mindscape (CCHU9014 Spirituality, Religion and Social Change | HKU Common Core)