Introduction
On September 13, 2010, at the age of 23, I left my home country, France, to embark on a several-months-long world travel. It took me to India, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Australia, the US, Brazil, and Peru. Of course, part of my round-the-world trip was about fulfilling personal aspirations. For example, I dived with Great White Sharks in South Australia, fulfilling a long-time dream… which I know not every person on this planet shares. But my core goal was to leave the Western cocoon and confront my mind, spirit and body to the reality of the lives of people around the world.
And I did.
I saw a naked old man lying dead in a pile of rubbish on a street in Calcutta. I was solicited by hundreds of beggars, many of whom were children, asking for small amount of money for food. And often I saw that, right beside sheer misery, a minority would be living a life of indecent wealth and excess, with the food and material they wasted being more than enough to support many others. Each time, my heart ached and cried. So even though I am a young, white, Protestant, French, middle-class male, I am not addressing you out of theory and reading nicely laid-out PDFs. I have witnessed the suffering of those among the 800 million who go hungry or are malnourished. I know the human price of a third of the world’s food getting lost or wasted.
Today I work with GreenFaith. As part of this 27-year old global multi-faith organization, I know I contribute to making a difference. With tens of thousands of people of diverse faith and spiritual traditions, we envision a world transformed, in which religious and spiritual communities everywhere generate a moral awakening to the sacredness of Earth and the dignity of all people. We believe that the good life is one of connectedness – with each other and all of nature. It is a world of flourishing life that replaces despair with joy, scarcity with shared abundance, and privilege with justly distributed power. Our mission is to contribute to the building of a global, multi-faith climate and environmental movement.
An Ethical Issue Shared Across Traditions
Interfaith dialogue is our daily bread. I can bear testimony to the fact that food loss and waste (FLAW) is indeed an ethical issue shared by all faith and spiritual traditions. Each stands on its own theological ground. But all provide a clear moral compass guiding the faithful to be grateful for the nutritious, tasty food that God, the Earth and people’s work provide us. All lead us to be mindful of how much we consume, to care about food that might be left over, and to commit to reduce hunger and malnutrition. Other essays in this volume speak to Jewish and Christian teachings on this subject. I would like to broaden the circle and share glimpses of the wealth and depth of other traditions also.
In Islam, a Hadith states that: “Anas (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: Whenever the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) ate food, he would lick his three fingers and say, ‘If anyone of you drops a morsel of food, he should remove any dirt that may have stuck on it and then eat it, and should not leave it for Satan’. He (ﷺ) also commanded us that we should glean the pot, saying, ‘You do not know in which part of your food the blessings lies’” [1]
In Buddhism, followers of the Zen tradition and many others practice ōryōki (鉢多羅), an elaborate meal ceremony which literally means taking “just the right amount” of food. The practice of ōryōki synchronizes body and mind through bringing mindfulness to how one eats: one receives food with gratefulness, measures what is enough, and even spares a portion of the meal to make a donation.
In Hinduism, it is taught that “restraint in consumption and simplicity in living represent a path toward moksha [मोक्ष] (liberation), which treats the Earth with respect. A well-known Hindu teaching – tain tyakten bhunjita – has been translated as ‘take what you need for your sustenance without a sense of entitlement or ownership’”. [2]
From Case Studies to Key Possible Joint Actions
Theology and spirituality, though, only bloom if they are embodied in people’s attitudes and practices. Faith organizations with whom we partner are already at work to inspire behavior changes at the personal and institutional levels, and advocate with decision-makers.
For instance, since 2012, the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, which gathers over 10 million members in over 50 countries, has been promoting “The 80/20 Lifestyle”. Based on the teachings of its founder Dharma Master Cheng Yen, Tzu Chi invites people to combat food waste by eating only until they are 80% full and use the other 20% to help others. And no one is too young to try: a striking implementation took place at Nibong Tebal kindergarten in Peninsular Malaysia, where teachers encouraged students to save one of the three cookies they were given each day during their daily snack time. Students agreed readily and delivered the collected cookies to low-income families.
This remarkable initiative reminds us that according to UNICEF, about half the world’s schools are managed by faith-based organizations (FBOs). Here we have a first lead for enhanced collaboration: FBOs that manage schools represent powerful allies to promote a healthy, just and sustainable use of food, at ages ranging from childhood to adolescence, when behaviors are often shaped for a lifetime.
Let’s stay in Asia for my second example. The Environment and Natural Resources Body of the Indonesian Council of Ulamas – which is the theological authority of the most populous Muslim country in the world – has developed an Excess Food sharing program. Instead of being wasted, unsold or unused food (which is different from leftovers) is gathered from restaurants, hotels, cafes, and canteens, and is distributed to people in need. In Jakarta, in the last two and a half months, 10 volunteers collected excess food from 11 donors, gathering enough to prepare 1,650 food packs, which were distributed to about 80 people in need. This local story proves that reducing food waste and loss, tackling the climate emergency, and addressing the impacts of poverty can all go together. Such a win-win approach – which Pope Francis calls “integral ecology” [3] – is of particular importance to many faith actors, who put caring for the most vulnerable at the heart of their work.
Here we find a second lead for increased joint action: innovative cross-issue partnerships can be imagined between FBOs, food producing companies and social organizations. Projects like this would also help to disprove the idea that taking care of the Earth means giving priority to the planet over the poor, as if there were a competition between the two urgent matters. This misconception is often still encountered in the religious world.
Allow me to share a final example. In 2018 the Global Catholic Climate Movement held a “St. Francis Sunday” in Kraków, Gdańsk, Poznań, and Toruń, Poland. At these events, country-specific information about food waste was shared in churches, and a “St. Francis Pledge” was signed by high-level religious leaders, including Catholic Bishops, the Polish Minister of Agriculture, the President of UNFCCC COP24, and parishioners around the country. The pledge called for the reduction of food waste and the associated greenhouse gas emissions and committed signatories to make changes themselves. Twenty-one media outlets covered the events, reaching an audience of over 2 million Poles.
This final case study shows how wide an audience faith leaders and religious institutions can reach, when they commit publicly, communicate through official channels, and talk to the media. It also illustrates well that in many places religious leaders have access to high-level decision-makers nationally and internationally. That is my third and last key lead for ramped-up impact by religions: through high-level leaders, there is great potential for advocacy with people in power and influence over a very wide audience.
Bringing Religious Action Up to Scale
At the beginning of my contribution, I took the time to quote sacred scriptures. Being rooted is vital, for it reminds us of the specific strength of religions and spiritualities among agents of change: we are vehicles of worldviews, beliefs and values which, when shared effectively and held deeply, determine attitudes and behaviors. We are not speaking of millions of people here, but of billions – actually over 8 out of 10 persons on this planet, according to the Pew Research Centre. [4] But let’s be honest, while religions represent a formidable potential for change, their action has not been brought up to scale.
At GreenFaith, we want this to change. And we come to the table with a concrete idea. Around the world, locally, people of different faiths and spiritualities are beginning to come together to form GreenFaith Circles – Communities of Care and Resilience. The members of these Circles meet regularly – at a church or temple, around the kitchen table of one of their members, or in another comfortable location. They work together on three “pathways to power”, areas of activity in which religious people must take action to help heal our precious planet. Action at the system level – political and economic – is vital, as is action at the institutional level, the level of our parishes, mosques, temples and religious schools. The third pathway to power is that of individual transformation, which includes shifting behavior. These small groups represent the living cells of a global community, and they are vital because we change most readily and most often when we are in relationship with others. When Circles meet, we encourage them to share a plant-based meal, inviting them to live the change that they want to see in the world.
When we offer guidance on individual behavior change to our Circles, we focus on the three areas which have the biggest impacts: transport, diet, and home energy use. Among possible changes in the diet area, we are promoting the reduction of food waste at home by 50%, and we encourage people to report to each other in their Circles about how they are progressing in this and other areas. It might not seem much, but we have learned that what matters is to lead people on a path of change which begins with a manageable first step. Presenting people with the end result at the outset often makes the climb seem impossible. It’s far more effective, and therefore important, to enable people to begin the journey, and to provide accompaniment that enables them to travel much farther together than they ever could go alone.
We believe it is smart to take the fight against climate change as an entry door to sensitize and motivate people of faith about food waste. For the climate emergency has become a top issue of concern worldwide, especially among young people – no less than 7 million people filled the streets in September 2019. And the impact of food waste is staggering: according to the FAO, internationally food waste produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any single country except China and the US. [5] In fact, it produces more greenhouse gas emissions than Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Canada combined! By lowering their food waste, participants are in a win-win situation: they help the planet, fight hunger, take care of the future, and embody their values of simplicity and justice.
Final offering
As we move forward into a challenging future, we are exploring the development of resources in multiple languages to support people of different faiths, and the faith-based communities to which they belong, to organize a Food Waste Weekend. On this weekend, they would offer a sermon, homily, qhutbah, dvar torah, dharma talk or other spoken teaching to educate their members or followers about the moral imperative of ending food waste. We would provide practical tips about how to do this, supported by teachings from their religion. We would invite these institutions and their members to make a pledge to reduce or eliminate food waste, and we would provide ongoing tips and reminders during the year about why and how to do this. This would be the first time a global, multi-faith community came together to focus on this vital issue. We have the relationships and the ability to make this happen and would welcome the chance to explore this with any of you who find it interesting.
We can solve the problems of climate change and food waste only if we come together as a community, only if we celebrate our diversity and our similarities, only if we learn together what it feels like and what it means to create a world truly governed by love, justice and compassion. With partners around the world and from a joyous variety of religions and spiritualities, GreenFaith has begun that journey. Will you join us?
End notes
[1] Hadith provided in its English translation by Hayu Praboho, Chair of the Environmental and Natural Resources Body of the Indonesian Council of Ulamas.
[2] Gandhi, Srinivasan Dr., Hinduism and Brotherhood, Chennai, Notion Press, 2018, chapter 13 (Kindle).
[3] See: Pope Francis, Laudato Si’. On Care for Our Common Home, 2015.
[4] Pew Research Centre, The Global Religious Landscape. A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010, Washington, D.C., Pew Research Centre’s Forum on Religious and Public Life, 2012, p. 9.
[5] FAO, Food wastage footprint. Impacts on natural resources. Summary Report, Rome, FAO, 2013, p. 17.