ECOLOGY

The Fourth Universal Apostolic Preference of the Jesuits is Caring for our Common Home. Our work focuses on giving support to Faith Based Organizations in their own ecological transition and working around the most pressing environmental policy issues within the European Union.

JESC Ecology has three lines of work that define most of our work: JESC Carbon Initiative (JCI), Future Generations Initiative (FGI) and Sustainable Food Systems.

JCI aims to accompany faith-based organisations and communities in their journey of ecological conversion and climate transition. Based on custom environmental assessment models, the project provides communities, institutions, schools and other faith actors with guidance to develop their carbon inventories, enhance their sustainability management and evaluate ways to cut emissions and reduce the use of natural resources.

FGI is an advocacy campaign that works on the establishment of a Future Generations Office (FGO) in the EU. This office would be tasked with acting on our responsibility towards future generations facilitating long-term perspective in policy making and in the public sphere. FGO will collaborate with many EU institutions collecting information, facilitating discussion and ensuring a long-term perspective in the legislative process.

Our Sustainable Food Systems programme deals with one of the most important policy areas of the EU: food and agriculture. The Common Agricultural Policy receives almost a third of the EU budget, 38% of the Union produces food and land-use is one of the most important factors behind biodiversity collapse. We work for an agricultural system that provides affordable, healthy and sustainable food for all people.

JESC is a member of the GIAN Ecology network, the European Laudato Si Alliance, the European Environmental Bureau and the Network of Institutions for Future Generations. The JESC ecology team participates in the support of the JCEP Eco-Delegates network, that is coordinated by our director Filipe Martins SJ.

ARTICLES

Faith Organisations and Food Policy: a new research report from JESC

What does faith have to do with food policy? Extensively, concludes the latest research report from JESC. Faith-Based Organizations and European Food Policy is...

Official Launch of the Future Generations Initiative

It was almost a year ago that we introduced our project on Future Generations. It was a long intellectual journey, in which we analysed...

ELSiA Statement on COP28