Sustainability series - The Canterbury commitment
Laurie Michaelis, in the second article in our series on sustainability, reports on the experience of Yorkshire Friends
Last summer I was one of three Friends who surveyed Yorkshire Meetings on their engagement with sustainability. Our findings surprised and encouraged us. Most of the Meetings were doing something. Nearly half were making major investments to green their Meeting houses. Many Friends were making efforts in their own lives. And a few Meetings were building links with their wider local communities in working for sustainability. Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) committed in Canterbury in 2011 to become a low carbon, sustainable community. Minute 36 of BYM 2011 says: ‘We need to arrive at a place in which we all take personal responsibility to make whatever changes we are called to. At the same time, we need to pledge ourselves to corporate action.’ It set out some guidance – for instance that our action must flow from love. But it left open questions of what we really mean by ‘low carbon’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘community’.
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