A TIO Report
On October 19, the Temple of Understanding in New York City brought together leaders of international interfaith organizations and other eminent visionaries. Their mandate was to form an advisory council for the Interfaith Consortium for an Ecological Civilization (ICEC), a new committee developed by the Temple of Understanding and other organizations in connection with the United Nations Environment Programme.
ICEC is a consortium of religious and secular organizations dedicated to an ecological civilization. Its organizing partners are the Temple of Understanding, GreenFaith, the Center for Ecozoic Studies, and the International Center for Religion and Earth, in consultation with the New York office of the United Nations Environmental Programme.
The mission of ICEC is to facilitate a dialogue, an intentional interaction among the various sectors of society on ecological civilization that will gather wisdom from this dialogue in order to develop new shared understandings. The result of this will be to inspire and guide individual and social transformations, and lead in the transition to ecological civilization.
Organizers of the event report the event was a resounding success with over 50 people in attendance and excellent presentations by UNEP's Jim Sniffen and Felix Dodds, Executive Director of the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future.
The day focused on an emerging prophetic voice, which informed the ICEC input document for the United Nation’s Rio+20 process. Special thanks is given to Danny Martin for his facilitation on deep listening, and to Rick Clugman and Felix Dodds for their expertise in helping us craft the resulting document. The work arose from a position of collaboration and respect for the ethical voices that are rising up from multiple sources. From this unique vantage point they feel they have crafted an ethical lens that they hope will serve the Rio+20 process.