British Friends in 2001 issued a “Call to Action,” expressing with clarity and passion our sense of the urgent need to address the ecological impacts of our lifestyles and production systems.

Friends should have something to offer in the search for sustainable ways of living, partly because of our existing testimonies to equality, simplicity, justice and peace. Quaker spiritual and business practices offer a unique approach in the search for sustainable lifestyles, which demands creativity, experimentation and conflict resolution.

The Living Witness Project aims to support Friends’ corporate witness to sustainable living. The project, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, has engaged a growing network of meetings in exploring and developing their witness.

Representatives of the participating meetings meet regularly for residential weekends in a Link Group. These gatherings provide an opportunity to develop a shared understanding of what the group is trying to achieve, to reflect on experiences of working on Quaker witness to sustainability, and to develop participants skills in facilitating projects and processes in their meetings. The weekends have been fun and the group has developed a strong sense of community.

Several of the meetings have started new projects. Initiatives range from holding study groups to setting up businesses, and from public information campaigns to practical action for the local environment. Many meetings are involving the children in thinking about sustainability.

We face a number of challenges, both in the Living Witness Project and in BYM more generally, as we seek to respond to the current needs in our society. A transition to a sustainable world will need all kinds of action. We will need to make changes in our own lives, in our immediate communities and neighbourhoods, at the level of towns, counties and nation states, and internationally. If we acknowledge the importance of multiple, simultaneous courses of action, we can begin to relax our concern about getting our focus “right”. We can welcome the contribution of each member of our community and understand it as a contribution to our corporate witness.

John Woolman said:

"Oh that we who declare against wars, and acknowledge our trust to be in God only, may walk in the light, and therein examine our foundation and motives in holding great estates! May we look upon our treasures, the furniture of our houses, and our garment, and try whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions".

—A word of remembrance and a caution to the rich, 1793.