Stephen McKenzie explores current and potential relationships between religious belief, global ethics and social sustainability. He argues that work towards achieving sustainability (theoretical and active) must begin to take into account that the majority of the world's population are adherents to a religious belief of some kind. All major religions contain ideas about the responsibilities of the individual toward the environment and toward other people, and agendas for achieving sustainability are currently running parallel to these ideas. While religious belief has frequently been studied with respect to environmental sustainability, work on religion and sustainable societies is limited by the lack of methodological tools with which to explore the relationship. The paper provides an overview of current research, and suggests a comparative methodology for a research project into religion and sustainability policy.