What is green pilgrimage?

Green pilgrimage is about respecting the local environment and treading more lightly upon the earth. You might expect that pilgrimage destinations – considered our most holy and sacred places – would be the most cared for places on earth. But sometimes the opposite is true.

Many pilgrimage routes are littered by plastic bottles and rubbish. Sometimes the very act of going on pilgrimage increases local pollution and use of pesticides, disturbs threatened wildlife, increases carbon emissions and causes other types of environmental damage. 

Green pilgrimage is about reducing the environmental impact of pilgrimage – on energy, water, waste and carbon emissions – while protecting biodiversity and promoting new ways of sustainable living to protect our planet.  
'It is our profound conviction that the future
of the human family depends also on how
we safeguard – both prudently and compassionately, with justice and
fairness – the gift of creation that
our Creator ​has entrusted to us.'

– Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch 
​Bartholomew 1, 2014 

What does this mean practically?

Supporting...

​Green pilgrimage supports the use of
  • locally produced food
  • local accommodation
  • local crafts
and promotes the development of thriving green initiatives that create local jobs and boost the  local economy.

Practising...

Green pilgrimage promotes:
  • low carbon transport
  • greening of pilgrim sites
  • renewable energy
  • waste collection and recycling
  • clean water
  • protecting biodiversity

Sharing...

Green pilgrimage aims to:
  • inspire pilgims to go home with new ways of sustainable living to protect our planet
  • Share pilgrimage’s universal values of hospitality, welcoming the stranger, regardless of belief or origin

Why now?

Pilgrimage is increasingly popular worldwide with more than 330 million people going on pilgrimage every year, making it one of the fastest growing segments of the travel industry, according to the UN World Tourism Organisation. 

Ancient pilgrimage routes such as The Way of St James to Santiago de Compostela in Spain report that numbers are increasing by 10% every year, particularly among young people and the non-religious, with pilgrims coming from a record 140 countries around the globe. The Camino is Europe’s busiest pilgrimage route and now records more than 200,000 visitors each year with eight million people visiting its Cathedral in Santiago.

​Likewise, pilgrimage routes such as the Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome or St Brigid’s Way in Sweden are increasingly popular. And  in Norway pilgrimage along the St Olav’s Way is increasing by 20% each year.
Afternoon prayers, by Naseer Najwa

Pilgrimage theologies

The European Green Pilgrimage Network is a faith-led network
and arises from the conviction that caring for the environment is
​a religious responsibility. ​Many EGPN members have started by defining their faith’s theology of the environment, explaining how the traditional teachings of their religion show it is important to engage with green issues.

Faith guides to green pilgrimage

There are a wide variety of guides drawn up by faith groups that set out why greening pilgrimage is important and how to do it. These include:
'Give me my scallop-shell of quiet,
my staff of faith to walk upon,
my scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation, 
my gown of glory,
​hope's true gage, 
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.'

​– Sir Walter Raleigh
With thanks to Creative Commons photographers. Picture credits, from top, left to right: Solar panels by Kate Bunker; Harvest, by Stephen Depolo; Bicycle by Esteban Chiner;
​Prayer by the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw; pilgrim, from ARC.