Sri Lanka is home to over 26,000 religious institutions representing various religious faiths. Each year, over a million devotees of various faiths gather in such religious places to perform religious activities and to celebrate religious festivals.
The Sustainable Development Council of Sri Lanka (SDCSL) has developed the people centric green religious places concept proposing six main strategies to transform religious places scattered around the country into green and inclusive spaces. This innovative approach was developed to address key sustainable development challenges and to achieve wider impacts on a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It has been revealed by Plastic Recycling Companies that more than 20 tons of plastic waste alone is accumulated in religious places around Sri Lanka per year. Significant amount of degradable waste also gather around religious places. Furthermore, there is excessive consumption of electricity by religious institutions during normal days as well as during festivals. Most religious ceremonies are held at night. The current economic crisis and the consequent energy crisis have reaffirmed the need to look at alternative energy sources.
Accordingly, addressing priority areas such as alternative energy use, waste management and increasing green cover in religious places can have a positive impact on reducing Climate Change.
The strategies proposed in this programme include:
* Installation of rooftop solar systems in religious places to address the current energy crisis whilst mitigating the carbon emissions.
* Sharing of surplus food accumulated in religious places among vulnerable families through food banks to address food security and nutrition issues aggravated by the current economic crisis while preventing food waste.
* Transforming underutilized lands around religious places into productive lands by cultivating fruits and vegetables. This would open possibilities to grow rare fruits and medicinal plants and contribute to increase the green cover of the country.
* Using biodegradable waste to produce biogas energy or compost organic fertilizers and thereby promoting the use of renewable energy sources as well as organic cultivation. The use of waste as a resource contributes to the prevention and reduction of waste. In addition, it also creates opportunities for using clean energy for cooking and lighting while producing environment-friendly organic fertilizer to uplift soil fertility.
* Managing waste through reducing the use of plastic and polythene that gather around religious places and popularizing eco-friendly products to ensure sustainable consumption and production that support entrepreneurship, decent job creation, creativity and innovations, and growth of small and medium-sized enterprises.
* Promoting efficient utilization and reuse of water resources to ensure water security.
“Although we innovated this idea, we did not know how to implement this programme as SDCSL is a small organisation. We are very happy that the Senior Presidential Advisor on Climate Change, Ruwan Wijewardhane saw the value in this and suggested the inclusion of this programme in the Climate Prosperity Plan to be implemented under the aegis of the Presidential Secretariat'’, the Director General of the Sustainable Development Council, Chamindry Saparamadu said.
The Climate Prosperity Plan of Sri Lanka was launched by President Ranil Wickremesinghe at COP27 (the UN Climate Change Conference) held in Egypt in November last year. It presents a pathway for Sri Lanka to become a carbon-negative economy before mid-century. The People-centric Green Religious Places Programme aligns well with the core objectives of the Climate Prosperity Plan such as increasing the share of renewable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing green cover, creating green job opportunities and carbon crediting etc.
“It is our hope to capitalize on partnerships to implement this programme. We need to draw on the strengths of various stakeholders including Government agencies, businesses, non-Government agencies, community based organisations, philanthropic organisation, volunteer organisations, and devotees of all religious faiths to implement this programme across the island. This way, we minimize the burden on the Government to finance such initiatives. Already, the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress has approached us wanting to be a partner of this programme”, the Director General Saparamadu further stated.
Given its unique and innovative approach, the People-centric Green Religious Places Programme has been selected as an exhibit item at the SDG Acceleration Pavilion at the 10th Asia-Pacific Forum for Sustainable Development to be held in Bangkok from March 27-31, 2023. The Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development is an annual event convened under the aegis of the United Nations and brings together representatives from Governments and civil society of 53 member states as well as UN and other International Agencies.
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