Sustainability is one of the priority issues of LWF Youth globally. The youth committee of the German National Committee of the LWF member churches in this country have made it their priority theme. Please read more in the Moritz’ report.

We, the Youth Committee of the German National Committee (GNC) of the LWB, gathered for our spring meeting 2011 at “Blockhaus Ahlhorn”, a guest house run by the Ev.-Luth. Church of Oldenburg from March 11 to 13. In order to get to know the hosting church better, we had a discussion with the director of the Evangelical Academy and officer for Mission and Ecumenics, Ms. Brigitte Gläser.

Since the GNC gave us the task to develop a strategy how to implement the topic of sustainability in the future work of the GNC (as we offered ourselves to do so), this was our main topic. Considering the resolutions of the 11^th General Assembly in Stuttgart concerning sustainability we first focussed on central biblical passages dealing with man’s responsibility for God’s creation. After that we formulated a main goal that meets our task: As our main goal we identified to develop a resolution dealing with sustainable ways of operating the GNC that will be decided on in spring 2012. On all different levels of the GNC’s work we want to propose concrete steps to reach the goal of working in sustainable ways. As a first step we pointed out different areas that need to be evaluated, and, if necessary, changed to more sustainable ways of operating: How do GNC members travel to meetings? What criteria are decisive for choosing conference houses? Has the office a certification in the area of energy efficiency? How does the GNC understand itself as advocate for topics of sustainability for their member churches? Are financial resources of the GNC invested in ethical-sustainable funds?

Until our next meeting in fall 2011 at Usedom, Ev. Church of Pommerania, we will investigate which areas of the GNC already consider sustainability as criteria for decision making (with the help of GNC staff). In addition we will collect codes of sustainable ways of operating that are in use by other comparable organisations and include the expertise of staff members of the member churches who work in the field of ecological and economical sustainability. At our fall meeting we will then work on a proposal draft, which will then be brought in at the spring meeting of the GNC by the Youth Committee.