Interfaith Power and Light

Interfaith Power & Light (IPL) is an organization that works to mobilize faith communities to address climate change. Founded in California in 1998 as Episcopal Power & Light, IPL has since expanded to incorporate partners of various faiths and now has affiliates in 40 states. A key aspect of their work is helping congregations reduce their carbon footprint through environmental education.

Interfaith Power & Light grounds their work in faith and spirituality, focusing on the web of life that connects all living things. Religious communities that partner with IPL include those of the Baha’i, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu faiths, various Christian denominations, as well as other religions. Drawing on this belief that is shared among various religions, IPL mobilizes people of faith to work for climate justice. This occurs within their worshipping communities, such as by making their buildings more energy-efficient, as well as in the larger society through advocacy and public-policy work. While IPL’s affiliates are based in the US, IPL’s Carbon Covenant program connects these congregations with partners around the globe.

Interfaith Power & Light takes a comprehensive approach to engaging people of faith in confronting climate change. Their approaches include collaboration with partner organizations, mobilization of congregations, advocacy, and environmental education. Some of IPL’s key programs are Cool Congregations, Faith Climate Action Week, Paris Pledge, and Carbon Covenant. Cool Congregations helps people of faith be better energy stewards by reducing energy consumption in their homes and places of worship. Faith Climate Action Week encourages faith leaders to discuss issues of climate change in their worship services, in order to connect religious beliefs with action. Paris Pledge encourages individual faith communities to commit to the goals outlined for nations in the Paris Climate Accord. Lastly, Carbon Covenant connects congregations in the US with faith communities in the Global South in order to support their conservation work. Through these various programs and approaches, Interfaith Power & Light mobilizes 20,000 congregations to take action on climate change.

Environmental

Climate change has always been a part of the planet earth, but the speed of change in the past hundred years has been immensely greater than ever before, and human activity is the primary reason for that. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 300ppm (remained below this for 800,000 years) to 400ppm in the last 50 years, a rapid increase of more than 33%. This rapid increase in CO2 destabilizes the system. Sixteen out of the 17 hottest years ever have been in the 21st century. Oceans are becoming acidic; glaciers, sea ice and snow-packs are melting; and the frequency and intensity of droughts and storms is increasing. In this context, Interfaith Power and Light “inspires and mobilizes people of faith and conscience to take bold and just action on climate change."

Political

The political environment around climate change and global warming is sometimes divisive and polarizing; one 2019 study found that climate change is more “politically polarizing than abortion for US voters.” The study found that Democratic voters ranked global warming as the third most important issue while Republicans ranked it as the least important.

While most of the world’s nations seem to be more active in implementing climate-friendly policies, the Trump administration has been pulling back policies that protect the environment and seek to reduce Greenhouse gasses. In a political climate like this, IPL plays its role by encouraging people to vote while keeping the climate in mind and tries to influence local and statewide policy makers to support environmental friendly policies.

Economic

Businesses have often caused tremendous harm to the environment. A study conducted in 2010 found that most of the world’s companies would lose one third of their profits if they paid for the environmental damage/externalities caused by their business. It also estimated the environmental loss caused by the world's top companies to be around $2.2 trillion. However, more recent research indicates that businesses are becoming more conscious of their impact on the environment and are becoming more ambitious regarding the environmental targets they set for themselves.

Given the impact big business can have on the environment, IPL tries to engage businesses for pro-environment behavior; for instance, in 2019 IPL organized a ‘Faith to Ford’ campaign and delivered a petition to Ford Motors company to support clean car and fuel efficiency standards.

Cultural

As mentioned above, climate change is a cause of divisiveness in US society, and many people are skeptical about its reality. Significant parts of human behavior and decisions are influenced by the culture. While some religious people agree that climate change is happening due to human activity, some are skeptical; only 28% of white evangelicals believe that climate change is happening due to human activity according to the 2015 PEW research. IPL can prove to be particularly important in this regard as most of its audience is religious.

Approaches and tools

IPL utilizes multiple approaches and tools of community-based management, which can facilitate people coming together and contribute to managing the environment. As its mission states, IPL “inspires and mobilizes people of faith and conscience to take bold and just action on climate change”. It embraces multiple faiths and mobilizes nationwide faith communities to integrate their cultural and religious beliefs and values into their climate action. Representative programs include multiple effective approaches and tools to achieve their goals.

Faith Climate Justice Voter Campaign

The Faith Climate Justice Voter Campaign is a nonpartisan campaign led by IPL and includes several faith and climate partners. This campaign aims to engage and mobilize faith voters in 2020 to communicate their cultural and religious values of caring for Creation and loving our neighbors through voting. Additionally, this campaign recruits faith leaders, movement builders, thought leaders, theologians, authors, etc. as ambassadors who can be very influential in calling on others to join. According to a nationwide poll released in October 2020, 76% of Catholics support protecting God’s Creation, 90% of white evangelical Protestants support protecting God’s Creation, and 94% of Black Protestants of faith support protecting God’s Creation. By connecting this network, each individual within the faith group can display their shared interest and engage in collective action through this voting campaign (Meinzen-Dick et al. 2004).

Cool Congregations

This stewardship program enables community members to make changes in their homes and worship sites. It uses environmental education tools to help remove the barriers of individual eco-friendly behaviors. With the start-up kits, calculators and free guide, this program equips the communities with knowledge of climate issues and action strategies (Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002). It also sets up the Cool Congregations Challenge prize, and winners are selected in the categories of Energy Saver, Renewable Role Model, Sacred Grounds, Community Inspiration, and Cool Planner. With the same goal, each community can apply their own community assets and problem-solving capacities and commit to address climate change (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1996).

Faith Climate Action Week

This 10-day event occurs every year in April during Earth Month when IPL congregations focus on how all people can work together to take action to protect the climate. With solid collaboration of 12 partners (mostly other faith-based organizations), they have created a nation-wide network to foster collective climate actions. Partners include Sojourners, Yale Forum on Religion & Ecology, the Islamic Society of North America, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and Lutherans Restoring Creation. Activities include sermons focusing on creation care, movie screenings, and participation in the National Climate Prayer for Earth Day.

Paris Pledge

The Paris Pledge represents a unique opportunity for non-party stakeholders to sign on to the Paris Agreement. IPL is taking corresponding measures to bring faith communities nationwide to the table to discuss possible actions to address climate change. Therefore, in 2015 IPL’s Rev. Sally Bingham delivered a list of congregations and individuals (to UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon in Paris) who are willing to commit to the same carbon emission reduction goal. These congregations and individuals will also integrate the values and goals of the agreement into the teaching in their places of worship. The union of nationwide congregations and faith communities plays an important role in advocacy and public outreach.

Worship Resources

Besides the specific programs listed above, IPL also provides a platform of worship resources, including faith and global warming links, climate prayers and sample sermons, articles on faith and environment, and sacred texts with creation care themes, prayers, poetry and other resources. These resources work as an online education tool and facilitate in constructing the identity of the faith communities.

Results

Interfaith Power & Light by the numbers

●      40 state affiliates

●      Supporters in all 50 states

●      22,000 congregations

●      6,500,000 people of faith involved

●      198 Congregations have signed the Paris Pledge

●      More than 5,000 individuals have signed the Paris Pledge

In 2019, Interfaith Power & Light conducted a survey that found that the number of congregations using solar power had doubled over the course of three years. IPL found that there were “more than 770 faith communities with solar for a combined capacity of 45 megawatts." This speaks to the success of IPL’s environmental education efforts through their Cool Congregations campaign.

Through the Carbon Covenant program, IPL helps to support faith-based environmental projects in Cameroon, Cambodia, Ghana, and Tanzania. One of these projects, focusing on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, has brought together an alliance of Anglicans, Catholics, and Muslims to address issues such as deforestation and soil erosion. Already, 40,000 seedlings have been planted by over 200 schools, mosques, and churches. This international and interfaith effort showcases the strength of IPL’s social network, extending their reach well beyond the context of the United States.

Political Action

IPL organized thousands of people to march on the streets of San Francisco on September 8, 2018, before the Global Climate Action Summit. IPL’s group of people of faith “was the largest [contingent] in the march.”

IPL was at the forefront of advocating for Washington D.C. to pass strict clean energy standards. As a result of their efforts, D.C. passed one of the strongest clean energy standards in the US. The standard calls for the city to shift to 100% renewable energy by 2032. Mary Cheh, one of the council members who sponsored the bill, “credited Interfaith Power & Light…” for “leading the charge” on the bill.

IPL partnered with various organizations to collect signatures for a petition calling on automakers to support clean air standards. The petition had more than 260,000 signatures, and IPL collected thousands of signatures from people of faith, including over 400 clergy.

As a non-partisan organization, IPL is also working on integrating climate justice and racial justice. They are working to build and consolidate communities to address both the climate crisis and racial injustice. Ten of the IPL affiliations nationwide have made statements in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

Success of State Affiliates

The Iowa state affiliate of IPL has formed a Faith, Farm, and Climate program that works to educate farmers and the general public on how farming can be used to combat climate change. In 2019, the Iowa affiliate was able to extend this message to a broad audience through the New York Times, the Des Moines Register, the Kansas City Star, and Civil Eats.

In 2019, IPL’s North Carolina affiliate participated in the largest climate strike in the state’s history. Highlighting the mobilizing success of the affiliate, around 1,500 youth and adults participated in the strike, demanding that action be taken to confront climate change.

And, in New Mexico, the IPL affiliate organized its members to write comments, testify at hearings, make phone calls to state legislatures, and communicate with their neighbors in order to pass a 100% Clean Energy Plan for the San Juan Generating Power Plant, showcasing their engagement in political ecology and social networking.

References

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