St Paul's Shadwell
This page forms part of the Diocese of London’s Shrinking the Footprint microsite.
The Diocese of London’s scheme of Climate Action Plans is part of the Diocese’s strategic plan to address the challenge of energy use and carbon emissions from its buildings. See Route 2050.
Climate Action Plans is a scheme for churches to cut their energy use, costs and carbon footprint, become net carbon neutral and still save money over a year.
Each church is given a tailor-made package, to:
So less energy will be consumed in your church.
Then we need to get the best tariff for the energy which churches still need for their light and heat.
The energy a church uses will still produce some carbon emissions – though less than before. We should make sure we're contributing our fair share of the hidden costs from those emissions.
The financial implications of each segment of Climate Action Plans are indicated below. No financial contribution to the Diocese of London is requested from any church in the Diocese. In fact, we think all this can be done whilst making a net saving in parish expenditure.
A church's floor area can be measured from building plans. Its energy use is measured from meters and bills.
How much energy a church uses will depend on its size and level of activity – is it open once or twice on Sundays, or weekdays too? What activities and groups use the church?
We've developed a simple Survey Form to tabulate this information. This feeds into our new Energy-saving Benchmarking scheme. This service is free of charge to all churches in the Diocese of London.
Download the Survey Form below. You can fill it up using Microsoft Excel, or ask for a paper version. Under 'Energy use within the Church', those fuels which your church has. In other tables, enter your own figures under the example entries. There are buttons which add extra lines if needed.
Please return the form by email, or address any queries, to 
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| Benchmarking survey form |
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Estimating a church's carbon footprint is relatively straightforward – gas (or oil) and electricity account for most of its emissions (a building project would add more).
Here's a simple rule of thumb:
We help each church taking part in Climate Action Plans with a more accurate calculation. This service is free of charge to all churches in the Diocese of London.
Anyone can do the same for their home use of gas and electricity. There are many websites with calculators to help work out your personal carbon footprint – also including food, travel etc. We recommend www.carbonfootprint.com, and www.travelfootprint.org.
We're progressing the Energy-saving Benchmarking project as part of the Diocese of London's Climate Action Programme.
We already know how much energy the average London church uses, and its carbon footprint. But there is no such thing as an average church! It's little use knowing the average – without knowing how that church compares to others, like-for-like.
What seems like high energy use might mean the church's ministry is very active and justifies comparatively high energy use. Or that heat and light might be going to waste.
A computer model has been developed for the Diocese of London by Rickaby Thompson Associates. We enter data from individual churches, then adjust for:
Now we've entered up data for about 100 churches, we're able to tell which are on target, which ahead, which have further to go towards our targets.
Each church is given A to G efficiency Bands for energy and carbon emissions, and an overall performance Band.
This service is free of charge to all churches in the Diocese of London.
Charity Funding Solutions (CFS) provides a bespoke utility price comparison service.
Churches are paying too much for their energy. Price rises during 2008 increased rates for churches and halls by 40%. Prices fell during 2009 and 2010, but not enough to reflect lower wholesale rates. Now they are climbing steeply again in 2011 – especially sharp rises have been seen in standing charges.
So the Diocese has been seeking ways to mitigate the expense. We should be able to save energy and costs at the same time.
We also want to make sure churches get top service.
For the past several years, CFS has been providing a service to parish treasurers and clergy in a number of Church of England dioceses:
Over 90% of parishes using the service nationwide have achieved savings ranging from £150 to over £3,000 annually, even more in London (compare estimated average energy costs of £6,600 for London churches).
In London, this service is available to any church signing up to Climate Action Plans. It is provided by Charity Funding Solutions, entirely free of charge to the Diocese and all churches.
Factors to be considered include:
Charity Funding Solutions also:
Ancillary services by a supplier may be offered, such as free smart meters.
A fuller description of the CFS service, how it works and what to do, with frequently asked questions (FAQs) can be downloaded bewlow.
A simple form to enter up the data CFS needs to advise your church can be downloaded below. When completed, please return to .
| Charity Funding Solutions Utility Price Comparison Service |
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| Utility costs survey form |
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The Diocese of London has an existing agreement for switching electricity supplies to Good Energy.
Good Energy is the greenest energy supplier in the UK market, the only UK company which sells electricity from 100% renewable sources (solar, wind and hydro). The electricity consumed by customers is made up by supplying the same amount to the grid, from renewable generation sites owned by Good Energy or their third-party suppliers.
The cheapest energy tariffs aren't the greenest. Every supplier has to meet a minimum government standard; the cost of doing this is built into the tariff. But it only goes part of the way. Some suppliers go further, with specific 'green tariff' options – at a higher rate. Good Energy's tariffs include the prime cost of carbon-free electricity.
Under government rules, emissions from any 'green' tariff – including from Good Energy – are calculated on the same basis as any electricity from the grid. So we still can't claim our electricity is carbon neutral. But the more green energy we buy, the lower the average for the grid will fall UK-wide. And now the Diocese's Climate Action Plans put fully 'green' electricity on a 'level playing field' with the best non-green tariff.
Signing up to Good Energy remains an excellent way to achieve a green electricity supply. Our deal with Charity Funding Solutions complements our deal with Good Energy. A church may wish to sign up to green electricity in this way; or else to switch supplier through Charity Funding Solutions – supplemented by Carbon Retirement to deal with non-green emissions.
Good Energy now also sells gas. Gas from the UK grid is neither 'green' nor renewable. So Good Energy is re-investing its profits from gas in domestic solar hot water systems.
Gas supplies from Good Energy are currently only available for low consumption levels; this will limit the scheme to mainly domestic accommodation – well worth considering for the Vicarage.
See 'More Downloads' under What we can do for how to sign up to green energy through Good Energy. You can also call 0845 456 1640. Make sure to quote promotional code GE141.
To enable churches to make their contribution to the Diocese's target savings of 20.12% by 2012 and 42% by 2020, each church will need an individual savings plan.
The Diocese has been studying how churches can be upgraded – e.g. with insulation, new boiler controls, even solar panels. See our pages on Generic Building Solutions and Climate Action Projects.
Already some churches have begun carrying out projects like this. We're looking at new funding options to do this more widely.
But to begin with, saving energy need not mean spending money on capital works. Simple commonsense savings are possible at low cost or even no cost.
We want to make sure every church makes those low cost easy savings. This makes sense even more in present economic conditions.
Most people are surprised how much energy can be saved – when we really pay attention and put our minds to switching things off when they're not needed, turning them down when they're set too high.
So we'll work with each church taking part in Climate Action Plans to draw up a list of easy actions, such as:
Managing lettings is also a big chance to save energy.
Some of these suggestions will come from our audits – see Environmental Audits.
Our service providing no-cost savings plans is free of charge to all churches in the Diocese of London.
Carbon Retirement is a London-based company which the Diocese of London has established a partnership with. It provides a way to compensate for the carbon emissions you can't avoid.
Carbon emissions have an inbuilt cost. We can go on leaving the cost till the never-never, falling into debt with the future! Far better to pay our carbon costs now. It's wrong to leave the planet in a worse state than we found it.
Our new scheme of Carbon Retirement will pay carbon costs by purchasing European industrial emissions allowances (EUAs), permanently removing them from the carbon trading system.
EUAs are needed by big industrial companies. They are obliged by EU law to purchase enough to cover their emissions. Only a fixed number are issued, so reducing this pool forces companies to reduce their emissions. It encourages investment in low carbon technology.
When your carbon footprint has been estimated, with possible No-cost savings, the payment for the remaining carbon cost will be calculated. This can be paid to Carbon Retirement via the London Diocesan Fund, for purchase of EUAs.
EUAs through Carbon Retirement cost about £20-22 per tonne of greenhouse gases (CO2e). VAT at 20% is included. About 85% of the rest goes to retiring carbon credits, 15% to administration – charges by the EU market, and a small premium by Carbon Retirement Ltd. However, until the end of 2011 the Diocese is holding the cost to parishes at the original rate of £19 per tonne.
Participating churches will be issued with certificates for allowances purchased and 'retired' – to pin on the church notice board – proof that your church is set to become 'net carbon neutral'.
Download fuller details of Carbon Retirement below.
| Carbon Retirement |
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For more information on Climate Action Plans, or about the Environmental Challenge, contact Brian Cuthbertson on (020) 7932 1229, or email .
The following can be downloaded:
| Climate action plans: a handy guide |
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| Frequently asked questions |
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| PCC Summary |
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| RICS Building Conservation Journal article April/May 2011 |
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