Benchmarking for the Planet: Take an Easy First Step toward Carbon Neutrality
For nearly 20 years, General Conventions of TEC have recognized that human-caused climate change poses an immediate and serious global threat to the world, contrary to our Christian commitment to care for all God’s creation. In 2022 and 2024, the General Conventions of The Episcopal Church (TEC) encouraged dioceses and their parishes to pursue the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. Increasing energy efficiency in buildings is one concrete step toward achieving that goal.
Our parishes have a responsibility to ensure that the maintenance and improvement of their buildings are part of the solution to this crisis. A first step parishes can take is to participate in a no-cost, Diocesan-wide, benchmarking study of energy usage that will provide the Diocese and its parishes with personalized energy-usage profiles and energy-upgrade recommendations, leading to reduced energy usage and increased cost savings.
As Deacon Mary Sebold describes, this process is a relatively easy first step. “At St. Dunstan’s, we first replaced all light bulbs in the church with LEDs, and decided to get an energy audit after we had six months of bills with the new lighting. Taking part in this benchmarking project, rather than a full energy audit, is a great first step because it’s less expensive and time consuming, and still gives great results.”
Each participating parish will gather the 12 months of their utility bills for electricity and heating fuel for 2024, and enter them into a web-based tool for measuring facility energy consumption known as the “Better Building Efficiency Targeting Tool” (https://better.lbl.gov), offered at no cost by the U.S. Department of Energy. The more parishes participate, the more accurate these results will be. The EDOW Creation Care Committee, working with staff from Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA), will help parishes enter their data before summer 2025 and interpret the resulting energy-saving reports. IPL-DMV works with hundreds of congregations of all faiths across Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia to transition to clean energy, learn to go green, speak out for environmental justice, and respond to climate change. Save the date of February 11 for a meeting by zoom to learn more about this process.
A resolution urging all EDOW parishes to participate in this benchmarking study has been submitted for consideration at the January Diocesan Convention by the EDOW Creation Care Committee, with the support of clergy and parishes from around the diocese.
