GREENING CANADIAN MOSQUES
Working towards empowering mosque management teams, as well as mosque-goers, to understand environmental issues, to improve sustainable practices, reduce carbon emissions, and reduce costs.
In partnership with EnviroMuslims, Faith and the Common Good is assisting Canadian mosques to embed sustainability in their operations, and the tools they need to identify, track and deliver resource efficiency opportunities. The overall objectives of the program are to:
- Increase environmental and economic viability by providing Canadian mosques and their management teams with tools and resources to improve water and energy conservation, and waste management, while identifying potential facility cost savings.
- Create opportunities to build relationship between mosques, local sustainability experts and local communities to enhance environmental literacy and embed a sense of responsibility and love for caring for the natural environment.
- Bring greater public awareness of sustainability to mosque-goers to adopt sustainable behaviors within their local mosques, and personal and professional lives.
Why are Greening Canadian Mosques important?
Islam holds a high regard for environmental stewardship and sees it as a religious duty for Muslims to learn about environmental issues and make changes both individually and collectively to protect the natural environment. Since mosques serve both as a place of worship and a place to generate economy, education and social cohesion of the community, they serve as an influential medium for spiritually and behaviorally congruent environmental sustainability interventions in Muslim populations, and for improving and maintaining a healthy environment. In fact, 98.4% of Canadian Muslims surveyed agreed that mosques have an important role in inspiring the Muslim community to care for nature.
There is growing interest from Islamic leaders in Canadian mosques to engage in sustainable practices, and a definite need to provide them with holistic support and guidance to set and achieve sustainability targets and educate mosque users on environmental stewardship. All of the respondents to our survey want their local mosque to join a program that helps them become environmentally friendly by using resources efficiency and reducing costs.
Have questions or want to get involved? Email us at [email protected]
Other Resources
Read about the Greening Canadian Mosques Project
Read the Grant Announcement