Greening Sacred Spaces • Living Faithfully – Living Green
Greening Sacred Spaces Forum - 2008
The forum was a day-long event held on April 12, 2008 on how faith communities can contribute to creating a more peaceful, healthy and eco-sustainable world.
A video from our 2008 GSS forum will be coming soon!
There were two inspiring keynote speakers: Father Giorgio Di Cicco, Poet Laureate of Toronto, opened the day with a talk on The Ecology of Heart. Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, closed the day's events with a keynote on Leadership, Politics and Faith: Inspiring values that lead towards peace and sustainability. In between were many useful workshops and a vegetarian lunch.
Agenda
9:00 AM: Registration and Welcome
9:30 AM: Keynote by Father Giorgio Di Cicco
11:00 AM: Morning Workshops (see details)
Noon: Lunch and Green Awards Presentation
2:00 PM: Workshops (see details)
3:00 PM: Keynote by Elizabeth May
Keynotes
Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Poet Laureate of Toronto and ordained Roman Catholic Priest, is the author of some twenty volumes of poetry and a book of manifestos on creative cities. Father Giorgio will speak on The Ecology of Heart: Relationship with the environment does not come without communion with others.
Elizabeth May is the leader of the Green Party of Canada, a student of theology and former director of The Sierra Club. Ms May will speak on Leadership, Politics and Faith: Inspiring values that will lead us to peace and sustainability.
Workshops
Morning Sessions
- Green Roofs: Jennifer Sprout, from Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, in Toronto, and Rick Buist, President of Bioroof and Landsource Organix, in Hornby, On., talked about the benefits of green roofs to people, planet and the urban environment. Rick has helped installed more than 80 green roofs in the last few years and is currently working on a green roof installation on his own church in Burlington.
- Healthy, Green Buildings with Stephen Collette Flex: From mould in basements, to cleaning products, Stephen talked about how to make your worship space and home as healthy and green as possible. As we spend more time in our homes, and faith communities are using the buildings more often, it's important to ensure that these spaces are healthy places and all the key points and easy opportunities will be covered in this talk.
- Getting Started with GSS: Ottawa FCG Rep and GSS co-ordinator Kristina Inrig explained how to develop leadership, form a Green Team and use the GSS resources available to help green your faith community. The winners of the Green Awards for Faith buildings talked briefly about their GSS process and accomplishments.
- Energy conservation, Renewable Energy and Funding for Audits and Retrofits for Faith Communities: A presentation about energy waste, efficiency and renewable energy for religious buildings: How to save money and improve comfort levels and efficiency in your sacred space by utilizing the some of the many alternative energy options for powering your buildings with wind, solar, geothermal and other conserving and renewable energy sources. Tim Christie, Program Manager for GreenSaver, followed with information on funding options for faith buildings interested in renewables, audits and green retrofits.
Afternoon Sessions
- Organic, Naturalized Gardening: Lorraine Johnson is the author of numerous books related to native plant gardening, including 100 Easy-to-Grow Native Plants, and The New Ontario Naturalized Garden. In her workshop, titled Growing Connections: Gardens and Faith Communities, Lorraine explored the ways that faith communities are greening their grounds and making connections with larger community issues (such as access to fresh, nutritious food) and the creation of environmentally sustainable landscapes.
- Interior Greening: Constance Exley and Metta Keating discussed the emotional, psychological and spiritual aspects of greening a sacred space.
- Greening Sacred Spaces for Contemporary Worship: Green architect and building biologist David McAuley did an illustrated talk followed by discussion, case studies and dialogue, covering such topics as challenges of greening old buildings and advantages of old buildings and creative ways to make faith buildings more environmentally sustainable, energy efficient and healthy, with a focus on renovations and additions to existing worship facilities.
- Natural Burials: Janet McCausland, Executive Director of the Natural Burial Association, and Matt Bergshoeff, a funeral director with a religious studies background, discussed death from the perspective of several major religions, and explained what a natural burial is - why they are environmentally friendly and how your death can help to create a sacred and protected green space called a natural burial ground, full of native plants, birds and butterflies, where your friends and family will come to remember you.
- Eco-Spirituality: In this post-modern, ecological age, how does faith help us to face big challenges such as climate change, the environmental crisis and loss of biodiversity? We heard from different faith perspectives and discussed how our similarities and differences can inspire us to deep reflection and action. Led by Dr. Ted Reeve, Faith & the Common Good and Dr. Peter Timmerman, York University Environmental Studies, Buddhist.
Eco-Fair
There was a display area with information and resources on renewable energy, green cleaning products, local, organic services and products, low maintenance and native gardening, green roofs, eco-spiritual organizations and more.