Ethics in a global economy

Ethics in a global economy was a timely seminar, held on Wednesday 29th October, to explore faith perspectives on business ethics, at the level both of the global economy and the individual workplace.

Participants in the seminar called for a shared faiths perspective on the credit crunch to be developed and Faiths in London’s Economy (FiLE), the organisers of the event, undertook to facilitate that work.

The seminar was held at the St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace and was based on the understanding that the global economy operates in a multi-faith world which continually raises ethical issues for individuals and organisations.

Contributors to the event included:

• Dr Edmund Newell (Director, St Paul’s Institute) who spoke about the importance of the credit crunch being used as an opportunity for reflection across the global economy and within which faith communities have a valuable contribution to make.
• Jay Lakhani (Head, Hindu Academy) who highlighted the needs of those in the two-thirds world whose experience was consistently one of poverty and called for this period of reflection to be one that takes account of the needs of such people.
• Alison Murdoch (Director, Essential Education) who highlighted 16 guidelines for life and helped participants apply these to real life ethical issues in their workplaces through an interactive exercise.
• Saif Ahmad (CEO, Muslim Aid) who encouraged those present to be the people to drive this agenda and these issues forward from a faiths perspective.

Justine Huxley, St Ethelberga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, said:

“I felt it was a valuable first conversation and the speakers created an interesting range of perspectives. I hope we can do some kind of follow up to this. It would be good to start the ball rolling and help get a multi-faith response to this more widely heard.”

FiLE is a new network working with a range of organisations across London in order to create coordinated faith-community responses to the issues facing London's economy. FiLE is seeking to foster a more creative engagement between faith communities and employers. In facilitating a shared response across faiths to the issues raised by the credit crunch we will seek to demonstrate that faith can be put to work in work to bring real creativity and change.

Organisations that have so far worked together on different aspects of FiLE’s agenda include: Employer’s Forum on Belief, European Baha’i Business Forum, Faith Regen Foundation, Mission in London’s Economy and St Ethelberga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.

As a new network, our first initiative has been to begin to map organisations delivering resources and services on issues of faith and work across London and to share the information we have found with others through listing these organisations and resources on our webpage at http://www.mile.org.uk/file.htm. As this listing grows, it will offer employers and employees a one-stop shop for organisations and resources addressing issues of faith and work available in London.

Secondly, as part of raising awareness and removing misconceptions about issues of faith and work, we have begun a seminar series addressing such issues. The series began by considering Ethics in a global economy and will continue by exploring Faith-based models of Leadership. Through this series of seminars we will seek to broaden employers’ perceptions of the ways in which faith impacts work including issues such as creativity, diversity, empowerment, relationships, service delivery, transformation and values, among others.

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