Political Advocacy and Organizational Greening: Key Activities of the Church in Canada to Promote Sustainability

This project seeks to contribute to a growing area of study in academic literature: the possible role of faith actors in promoting socio-ecological sustainability at the national level. This thesis project is embedded in a Canada Research Chair project entitled Faith Institutions Advancing Transformation (FIAT) and uses data collected for the purposes of this larger project to explore an independent research question. Preliminary exploration revealed two primary activities undertaken by Christian actors in Canada to promote sustainability: political advocacy and organizational greening. It was thus decided to organize this thesis around the following 3-part research question: (1) how does the church in Canada promote sustainability through political advocacy and organizational greening, (2) what challenges complicate these activities, and (3) why are they prioritized? This research question was designed to be broad enough to ensure a meaningful introduction to the landscape of sustainability work by Christian actors in Canada, a previously underexplored area. Based on prior awareness of the highly collaborative identity of faith-based environmentalism, this thesis project adopts the novel unit of analysis used in the larger FIAT project. The term “the church in Canada” will be used in this thesis to describe the diverse network of national churches, related aid organizations, faith-based Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), social movements, and coalitions committed to promoting sustainability in Canada, and "Christian Civil Society Actor(s)” (CSAs) will occasionally be used to refer to one or more specific actors within the church in Canada. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with knowledgeable individuals from these organizations were conducted to provide a nuanced understanding of the institutional rationale for, and challenges associated with, political and organizational greening, alongside insights from grey literature. Inductive analysis of these two types of data provided many important insights, which are presented in Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 presents key findings related to organizational greening. Three key justifications for engagement in this activity were revealed in the data: the desire to act on faith-based commitments to environmentalism, stewardship, or climate justice, saving money, and demonstrating cultural relevance. Key informants identified several barriers to successful organizational greening including challenges faced by paid staff and volunteers, bureaucracy, and a perceived (or real) lack of sufficient funds. However, key informants also explained how these barriers can be reduced or overcome when volunteers organize effectively or when greening is supported by higher levels of church leadership such as national churches and regional dioceses. Chapter 3 presents key findings related to political advocacy. It was found that political advocacy is promoted by the church in Canada for two primary reasons: belief in the necessity of policy change to promote sustainability in Canada and the importance of acting as a prophetic witness in the public sphere regardless of the impact on policy. Key informants pointed to several barriers to successful political advocacy including limitations faced by Christian advocacy organizations and challenges inherent to the Canadian political and economic context. However, further research is required to understand the extent to which the church in Canada is aware of these challenges and their potential impact on the outcomes of political advocacy. Discussing organizational greening and political advocacy together also yields important insights. While the data hints at a few potential points of connection between these two primary activities, it became clear in interviews that Christian CSAs in Canada have not established a firm connection (practical or philosophical) between organizational greening and political advocacy or how these activities may support one another. Of these two activities, advocacy is much more popular and is characterized by significant collaboration. In contrast, organizational greening is the primary domain of only two organizations that differ in their goals, scope, and approach. This thesis concludes by suggesting that the church in Canada would benefit from collectively discerning areas of overlap between organizational greening and political advocacy and creating mutually supportive connections to increase the impact of the church promoting sustainability in Canada.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.