The IEC



Christmas Tree & Furniture Recycling & Bulk Item Drop Info
A Variety of Earth Day Responsive Readings
A Few Thoughts For Preaching the 23rd Psalm (For Earth Day)
Why Earth Day is a Jewish Holiday
Directions for printing "Responsive Readings" as a booklet

Mission Statement

The Interfaith Environmental Council (IEC) is a coalition to repair, protect and preserve our environment while integrating God's vision of sustainability, responsibility and advocacy for creation.

Working in partnership with our own faith communities, the IEC is a collaboration of religious institutions established to examine the spiritual connection to God's world and to explore and advocate ways to make environmental issues a significant focus of life in Southern California.

We seek to identify ways to improve, repair and pass on to future generations a planet that is peaceful and shares resources equally. Through outreach, education, advocacy, participation in public policy discussions, and moral leadership, we seek to develop a growing understanding of the religious and human connection to the natural world. We will strive to serve as a passionate and effective advocate of environmental protection.

The IEC was founded in December 2000, by a joint effort of Rabbi Harvey Fields of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, The Right Reverend Frederick H. Borsch of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, other religious leadership of Southern California and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Green Sanctuaries Program

The Green Sanctuaries Program is a pilot program dedicated to implementing sound and equitable environmental practices at churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other affiliated faith institutions throughout the City of Los Angeles and to instilling the principle of environmental stewardship in present and future generations.

While encouraging faith institutions across the city to make the most of solar power, green power, energy efficiency and conservation measures, and other environmentally friendly initiatives available to them, the program will serve as a model of environmental action to various communities of Los Angeles. It will go beyond merely instituting environmentally friendly measures in faith institutions; it will exhort congregants to implement such measures in their own homes and businesses.

(For more Earth Day From the Pulpit information, go to the Earth Day From the Pulpit page.)