Major religious traditions have begun to reflect on sustainability concerns in their theology and practice. Little research, however, has explored the implications of this development for organizational behavior as well as secular thinkers and practitioners of sustainable development. This book elucidates the varied ways in which faith traditions provide new forms of coping mechanisms to deal with environmental challenges confronting humanity through an integrative review and critical analysis of recent research. Bringing together a compendium of religious and faith traditions, rooted in both Eastern and Western approaches, the work provides a new perspective and presents alternative paradigms to deal with the contemporary ecological crises. The UN Interfaith Statement on Climate Change (2021) highlights the importance of faith traditions to foster “shared moral responsibility for the environment” and set an example for the “life-style of billions of people and political leaders around the world to act more boldly in protecting people and planet.” This interdisciplinary work examines the interaction between management/organizational settings and spirituality focusing on a range of contexts and spiritual traditions including Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, Confucianism, mindfulness practices and indigenous spiritual traditions. Featuring theoretical papers and case studies from different contexts and geographical regions, this book provides researchers, faculty, students, and practitioners with a broad overview of the field from a research perspective, while keeping an eye on building a bridge between scholarship and practice.

Faith, Hope, and Sustainability explores the experiences of fifteen faith communities striving to care for the earth and live more sustainably. A church in Maine partners with fishermen to create the first community-supported fishery so they can make a living without overfishing. A Jewish congregation in Illinois raises extra funds to construct a green synagogue that expresses their religious mission to heal the world. Benedictine sisters in Wisconsin adopt caring for the earth as part of their mission and begin restoring one hundred acres of prairie, reviving their community in the process. Presbyterians in Virginia, dismayed by air pollution in Shenandoah National Park, take courage from their conviction that "God does not call us to do little things" and advocate for improved national air pollution policies. Stories such as these highlight the variety of environmental actions that people of faith are enacting through congregational venues. Beyond simply narrating inspiring stories, however, this book compares these case studies to explore in detail the processes through which the communities took action. In addition to examining why faith communities engage in earth care, Cybelle T. Shattuck explores how they put intention into action and how the congregational context affects what they do. She introduces an analytical framework focusing on four domains of activity—champions, faith leaders, congregations, and organizations—to explicate the full range of factors that influence how initiatives develop and whether sustainability becomes embedded in these religious organizations. Both the framework and the information on process presented in this book will be highly useful to scholars and to people of faith interested in implementing an earth-care ethic through sustainability programs.

This book sheds light on the social imagination of nature and environment in contemporary China. It demonstrates how the urgent debate on how to create an ecologically sustainable future for the world’s most populous country is shaped by its complex engagement with religious traditions, competing visions of modernity and globalization, and by engagement with minority nationalities who live in areas of outstanding natural beauty on China’s physical and social margins. The book develops a comprehensive understanding of contemporary China that goes beyond the tradition/ modernity dichotomy, and illuminates the diversity of narratives and worldviews that inform contemporary Chinese understandings of and engagements with nature and environment.

This reference handbook tackles issues relevant to leadership in the realm of the environment and sustainability.

"This book presents a systems thinking approach to sustainability by answering questions on the meaning of sustainability in business, ecology, environmental quality, and economic development. Systems approaches to social injustice are developed. The sustainability of governance processes and achieving larger sustainability goals requires integrating the activities of NGOs, businesses, citizen groups, and standard setting and monitoring activities with more conventional actions of governments. The book includes a discussion of how practices in the sciences, education, religion, and the arts are changing in response to the need for improving sustainability. It ends with an exploration of the roles that individuals can play both as consumers and through partnering with others in social and political action"--

A foundational resource for readers investigating religiously motivated environmentalism, this book provides both a global overview of the subject and a detailed discussion of key figures, concepts, organizations, events, and documents. Beginning in the late 1960s, a growing number of activists, scholars, and scientists asserted that traditional religions had been major contributors to the environmental crisis. In response, theologians, religious organizations, and religiously motivated activists became increasingly involved in environmental issues. At the same time, emerging nature-based belief systems emphasized values and lifestyles based in environmentalism. More recently, religiously motivated environmentalism has become a powerful force in shaping environmental policy and human action globally and has joined with secular environmentalism to address related issues. This book explores the background and current state of religious environmentalism. The book begins with an overview essay examining the history and context of religious environmentalism and its significance today. A chronology then profiles the most important events related to religious environmentalism. A section of more than 50 alphabetically arranged reference entries follows, with each entry providing objective information about people, places, events, movements, works, and other topics. The entries include cross-references and suggestions for further reading, and the book closes with a selected, annotated bibliography of major works.

In the last fifty years, the Appalachian Mountains have suffered permanent and profound change due to the expansion of surface coal mining. The irrevocable devastation caused by this practice has forced local citizens to redefine their identities, their connections to global economic forces, their pasts, and their futures. Religion is a key factor in the fierce debate over mountaintop removal; some argue that it violates a divine mandate to protect the earth, while others contend that coal mining is a God-given gift to ensure human prosperity and comfort. In Religion and Resistance in Appalachia: Faith and the Fight against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, Joseph D. Witt examines how religious and environmental ethics foster resistance to mountaintop removal coal mining. Drawing on extensive interviews with activists, teachers, preachers, and community leaders, Witt's research offers a fresh analysis of an important and dynamic topic. His study reflects a diversity of denominational perspectives, exploring Catholic and mainline Protestant views of social and environmental justice, evangelical Christian readings of biblical ethics, and Native and nontraditional spiritual traditions. By placing Appalachian resistance to mountaintop removal in a comparative international context, Witt's work also provides new outlooks on the future of the region and its inhabitants. His timely study enhances, challenges, and advances conversations not only about the region, but also about the relationship between religion and environmental activism.

The book explores the profound insights of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Islamic scholar, on the ecological crisis and its underlying causes. Nasr argues that the dominance of scientism, which prioritizes contemporary science as the sole source of knowledge, has led to a destructive relationship between humans and nature. He proposes that restoring the religious perspective is crucial for finding a lasting solution to the ecological problem. The book delves into Nasr's comprehensive body of work, covering diverse subjects such as Islamic philosophy, Islamic art, Islamic science, Sufism, and the ecological crisis. Nasr's approach advocates for a holistic and inclusive philosophy that draws inspiration from the perennial philosophy and the principles of Islam. He emphasizes the importance of reconnecting with our spiritual heritage and rediscovering reverence for the natural world. The book also discusses the relevance and applicability of Nasr's ideas to non-Islamic cultures and societies. This is a unique study into the work of an important Islamic scholar and ecologist. The key audience includes scholars and researchers interested in Islamic philosophy, environmental ethics, and the intersection of religion and ecology.

Sustainable Development Policy and Administration provides a learning resource describing the major issues that are critical to understanding the multiple dimensions of sustainable development. The overall theme of each contributed chapter in this book is the urgent need to promote global sustainability while adding insights into the challenges facing the current and future generations. This volume brings together diverse contributions that cover the multiple facets of development, resulting in a rich reference for students, development managers, and others interested in this emerging field.

The field of religion and ecology is an emerging and growing movement that is becoming relevant and influential in the world. It seeks to analyse, encourage, inspire, use, compare, and combine religious traditions to engage and shape environmental issues. Tony Watling seeks to ethnographically analyse this important field and its expressions. In particular, he analyses and compares its explorations of different world religions for ecological themes and the resulting expressions of ecological visions, in what he terms 'religious ecotopias' - idealized, environmentally-friendly re-imaginings of nature and humanity, and correspondingly religion, which seek to influence environmental attitudes.