Prince inspired linking faiths with environment

Today I am mourning the loss of Prince Philip, someone I worked with for nearly four decades and who was my friend. In that time, I watched him become the inspiration for the largest civil society environmental movement in the world-that of the world's religions.

He was also a man who had a special affection for one of the greatest and most ecological of all religions-Daoism. One of the very last public events he did before he retired at the age of 95 was to welcome the senior leadership of the Chinese Taoist Association to a meeting at Windsor Castle to celebrate the launch of a major eight-year plan by the Taoists to increase their activities to protect nature.

It was in that castle on Friday that he died at the age of 99.

It was Prince Philip who in 1985 saw that working with the major religions around the world would bring new partners to the struggle to protect people and planet. It was his absolute conviction, when it was not fashionable to have such a conviction, that religions are vital forces for a sustainable planet, and that secular environmentalists needed to work with them.

In the 1980s I had written a book on religions and the environment, including a section on Chinese traditions, called Worlds of Difference, which was aimed at children, and Prince Philip, then International President of what was then called the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), read it. As a result, he asked me to organize the first ever meeting between the major faiths and conservationists in 1986 as the main focus of WWF's 25th anniversary.

Back then, this idea was groundbreaking. Prince Philip's argument was that statistics alone would not inspire people to take action on the environment. His view was that if we only needed access to data and information to be inspired to save the planet, we would be on our way to saving it.

He said: "The trouble is we're not touching anyone's hearts and minds. And there are only two things that have ever spoken to the hearts of the people-the arts and religion-and for much of history they've been the same thing."

That meeting resulted in the most publicity WWF had ever seen for an event. More important, it inspired the faiths to consider the environment as a religious issue-in many cases for the first time-and it transformed religious attitudes toward conservation and other environmental issues.

In the four decades since then, all the major faiths have declared the environment to be a faith issue and now have programs of practical action on the environment. Much of that would never have happened without the explicit support of Prince Philip.

After that ground-breaking WWF meeting in 1985 between the faiths and conservationists, Prince Philip persuaded WWF International to run a program working with the faiths, which I headed for nine years.

When he subsequently suggested that what was needed was a standalone organization solely dedicated to building links between the worlds of faith and environment, we founded the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) in 1995, which I ran until 2019. On the front page of The Times newspaper the day we launched ARC, there was a photograph of Prince Philip, walking side by side with the then president of the Chinese Taoist Association.

In 2019, we founded another organization, FaithInvest, again inspired by a suggestion from Prince Philip. He suggested that the assets of the faiths (their buildings, finance, pensions, purchasing power, and so on) could revolutionize practical action and engagement with environmental issues.

Although Prince Philip is known throughout the religious worlds as an inspiration and a leader in taking the social, environmental and financial power of the faiths seriously, this aspect of his work is little known to the wider public.

That was typical of the man. He never wanted to boast about his role in public life; he always said that it was the people on the ground who did all the work.

However, although he would have shaken his head at my mentioning it, I would like to say now that Prince Philip inspired a great deal of change in the world.

Without Prince Philip's willingness to break down barriers, to be a bridge and to show the faiths they were valued, what the United Nations has described as the 'largest civil society movement to protect the planet' would never have happened.

We were last in touch in January this year. He was excited to hear that we were working with hundreds of faith organizations to help them develop Faith Long-Term Plans on the environment, to be launched in September this year.

We had hoped to be able to celebrate yet another major program with him but now will do so in his honor.

Prince Philip was fiercely loyal, strongly critical when necessary, huge fun, humorous and wise. To me he's been the most wonderful friend, someone with whom I've exchanged correspondence, spent time walking through sacred and natural landscapes in Greece, visiting places around the world where the faiths were already working to protect nature.

I have had the most amazing privilege of getting to know someone with whom I have argued strongly, with whom I have joked a great deal, with whom I have plotted and planned things that probably the more staid parts of the world would think were a little bit extreme and wild.

But between us-led by him, enabled by him-we have managed to change the world a little. And that is down to the fact that this man, Prince Philip, had a vision and the skills and confidence to go ahead with it. By bringing the faiths into conversation with the conservation movements, he, without question, changed the world for the better.

Today I am grieving the loss of a friend as well as the founder of what has become the largest civil society movement on the environment. Personally, I will miss him immensely. He has been a great mate. May he rest in peace.

The author is CEO of FaithInvest. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.