Climate and Sustainability| Faith-Based Nongovernmental Environmental Organizing in Action: Veroes’ Campaigning for Vegetarianism and Mindful Food Consumption

Abstract

Ensuring an environmentally sustainable future has become one of the most trumpeted issues on the international political agenda. However, the dominant focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions through renewable energy, emissions trading, and carbon capture and sequestration has shifted attention away from other factors contributing to climate change, such as the environmental impact of meat production and consumption. This article examines how a religious nongovernmental organization (RNGO) can respond to this issue through its mediated and nonmediated communication. More specifically, this in-depth case study explores how youth volunteers of an internationally renowned Humanistic Buddhist NGO enact an environmental communication campaign that promotes vegetarianism and mindful food consumption locally and translocally through three communicative practices: affective embodiment, invocation, and transmediation. Hence, this article provides important insights for research on the intersection between environmental communication and faith-based organizing.