Area of Focus 1 – Greening Your Church/Diocesan Institution
| Very engaged | 13 |
| Somewhat engaged | 47 |
| Not at all engaged | 6 |
| We plan to engage in this work | 8 |
Comments
We generate very little trash and recycle bulletins and inserts. We use glass or plastic plates that are rewashed.
We just rent space at the UCC, so we have almost zero say in the building upkeep, greening. We do recycle our bulletins. We do not use biodegradable tableware because at our high altitude it does not biodegrade any faster than paper. Compost is expensive for the only on Sunday coffee hour waste. We have an ASA of about 16 people.
The xeriscaping that the church has is amazing. I know the awareness for products we use at the church are earth friendly. No a Green Team does not meet regularly.
No green team but we recycle plastics and cardboard, use LED light bulbs, we have a pollinator garden and a church garden that we donate the produce to the food bank. We just purchased an energy efficient dishwasher.
Our Vestry will start the conversation about reducing water usage for lawn, converting to native & drought resistant planting. We currently recycle, even though our community has no business recycling.
We use LED bulbs, reduce waste, do recycling, use organic cleaning agents. Also involved in creation care formation at camp and in area. Involved in NRCS/USDA Forestry work.
We recycle plastic cups and Sunday bulletins, and we are trying to cut down on Styrofoam, using ceramic coffee mugs
Blooming Buddies has four members involved in Building and Grounds meetings! The Booming Buddies fertilize the gardens, lawns and plantings on Church Grounds! Watering tasks, pruning, raking, and other chores are shared by these four people!
Some of our initiatives:
- We have rewired over 150 light fixtures and converted them to LED.
- We have replaced the remaining 100 incandescent light bulbs to LED. (Currently 95% LED campus wide)
- Reduced water consumption with sprinklers and increased xeriscape spaces around property.
- Installed WiFi thermostats throughout building that are scheduled and can be updated remotely.
- Several rounds of fire mitigation through the campus to reduce dead trees, limbs, etc.
- Church-branded water bottles for sale to reduce plastic consumption.
- Three 100 gallon recycling bins throughout the building to decrease waste in the landfill.
- Heavy usage rooms have motion sensor light switches to reduce electric consumption (bathrooms, nursery, etc.)
We recycle cardboard and non-sensitive paper. We use a short one page bulletin every week. Our grounds are also landscaped so that they don’t require irrigation or replanting of any kind.
No green team, but we do regularly consider energy conservation measures.
We do not have a green team. We have several folks for whom the issue is important, but COVID halted momentum that hasn’t re-emerged.
We are working to phase out single-use items at receptions/coffee hour. We have updated much of our lighting. We are working with the city to install EV charging stations. We grow organic vegetables on campus. We are planning to cut back on-campus water usage. We are exploring the possibility of solar car ports.
Our Green Team was founded in 2009. It was the seed for the Broomfield Farmers’ Market at Holy Comforter, and metamorphosed into our farmers’ market ministry. We would like to form a new, separate Green Team ministry, acknowledging that many of our members would probably serve on both ministries.
We had a green team 14 years ago and we worked with Excel Energy to switch out all our lighting to energy efficient. This group turned into the Broomfield Farmers Market after that project ended.
- Over the past 3 we replaced our florescent light to LED Lighting in lower level of the church, sanctuary and Parking Lot.
- We have for years been actively collecting recyclable materials. We have recyclable containers throughout the church.
- We have 7 Programmable Thermostat throughout our church. We monthly check the programing. to assure changes have not been made.
- We installed an 85 ” TV and 65″ TV to project our services to reduce the amount of printing bulletins.
- We are currently looking at the feasibility of installing a solar Garden on our property.
- We started a discussion about the opportunities of xeriscaping.
- This past year we had our sprinkler system turn off and blown by a professional country.
- We installed a new energy efficient water heater and washer/dryer
We have stopped using Styrofoam and plastic for Coffee Hour. We are seriously looking into putting up solar panels. We are exploring using less water on the property
No green team. Small congregation, we all do our part.
Youth retreats recycle while on the retreats and we are trying to find ways to help include activities that will help the Earth. It should be a conversation in meetings.
We are in the early stages of the program.
We are a very small parish with mostly older parishioners. Currently we have recycling at church that is collected by our trash pickup provider. We keep the heat as low as possible when the building is unoccupied and have high efficiency furnaces. We replace older CFC and incandescent light bulbs with LED lamps as they burn out. For all intents and purposes, our Bishops Committee is our “green team.”
Climate Change and Care for Creation began in August 2020 as one of several small groups, a program suggested by our pastor to help people stay connected during Covid. We met weekly until December 2020, discussing the book, The Future We Choose.
Then we became Care for Creation a small group that meets monthly at which we check-in, share climate/environmental items of interest, and ideas for action, both individual and group.
We worked with Boulder County PACE (Partners for a Cleaner Environment) to reduce waste and save energy, and have been certified as being on the Pathway to net-zero for faith-based organizations.
We have researched, written, and submitted announcements weekly about Caring for Creation — informational “tips,” educational materials, or spiritual offerings — in our church e-bulletin.
After worship on a Sunday, we presented the PACE video “Sorting
Members of our group planned and performed a skit for an after worship on Sunday event on using our recycle, compost, landfill bins correctly.
As a congregation, we spent Lent 2022 meditating and praying on the Care for Creation Pledge, planned a Creation Sunday liturgy and a signing of the pledge event.
We’ve participated in the 11th Hour bell-ringing with other faith organizations in Boulder County to alert people about the climate crisis and to pray.
We are working with the Re-envisioning St. Aidan’s Committee.
More to follow. . .
* The parish hall refrigerator/freezer units the storage room freezer were replaced with Energy Star Rated units last July as recommended by St. Aidan’s Creation Care Team.
* St. Aidan’s LED Lighting Projects
Accomplishments
Completed remodel of Parish Hall Lighting. Florescent fixtures (27 fixtures) replaced with 9 high-performance, circular LED lighting fixtures.
315 florescent fixtures rewired and LED tubes installed.
51 incandescent/halogen bulbs switched out to LED equivalent.
* Project Cost
$1552.50 rebates from PACE ($742.50) and Xcel ($810) more than covered cost of the LED lighting fixtures for the Parish Hall.
Incandescent/halogen bulbs switched out at no cost by CLEAResult (Xcel Partner)
Florescent fixtures re-wired and LED tubes installed at minimal cost by Switch-It-up LED (Xcel Partner). Only cost was to rent scissor lift & ladder to access high ceiling lighting in the church.
* St. Aidan’s EV Charging Station Project
Project Motivation
St. Aidan’s providing parking services to students, staff, facility and visitors to CU Boulder. We consider it our responsibility to support the transition to green transportation and offer EV charging stations to our parking patrons.
Expected Completion
We expect to be fully operational in February 2023
* Project Cost
Total Project Cost $30,436
Charge Ahead Colorado Grant $18,000
Net Project Cost $12,436
Submitted by Tom Sturm, former co-facilitator of Care for Creation, now Junior Warden.
St. Aidan’s Care for Creation team 4-6 people) has met regularly on Zoom (monthly) since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. We have read and discussed books together, worked with our local utility to have the lighting in the parish hall changed to more energy efficient LED’s, encouraged the use of compostable products at the coffee hour, added prayers for stewardship of the earth to the Prayers of the People during Lent last year, as we prepared to sign the pledge for Care of Creation, had a Pledge signing coffee hour after Easter in which people we invited to sign a giant copy of the pledge ( now in the parish Hall), and participated in recycling games, Presented a skit about recycling at another coffee hour. Put Care for creation tip of the week in the weekly online newsletter. Published stories about Creation written by one of the team members in the newsletter.
Members of the group have presented activities on the creation at our children’s Sunday School time.
Some members of the “team” also attend a monthly 11th hour bell ringing ceremony and prayers at an Ecumenical Catholic church.
Our church has also worked with a local group ” Food not Bombs” who gathers soon-to-be-discarded food from local grocers and uses the church kitchen to prepare a mean for the homeless from these still good products that would otherwise go into the trash.
We have some people in our church that work to “green” our impacts on the environment, but it is not constant nor a top priority.
We have worked on lighting in the past but are forming a “green team” this spring to look more in depth at greening St. Ambrose.
Not aware of a green team
We are just starting a green team and have 5-6 people interested in that. We converted a number of our light fixtures to LEDs a few years ago, and are looking into grants to replace conventional HVAC with more environmentally friendly solutions, like heat pumps. We also have a roof that is well-suited for solar electric installation.
We are hoping to setup a Green Team in the next couple of months. We have done some energy efficiency improvements – replacing most lights with LED, replacing 2 very old gas furnaces (with more efficient gas furnaces). We hope to investigate replacing additional furnaces with heat pumps, but not sure the building is insulated well enough.
Our Social Justice Ministry has in past month added Climate/Environmental issues to our years long political focus on issues of racism, housing and gay rights. Another group has worked on the churchyard garden/trees and vestry considering what to do with our parking lot areas, ? community garden may be an option
We do not have a “green team” but the Vestry works hard to be as energy efficient as possible. For example, since January 2020 we have tracked utility usage each month to monitor and mitigate excesses of use in these area. We have been able to find water leaks and the overuse of gas and electricity early and have been able to not only reduce costs but also reduce amount of unneeded use. We make sure that any appliance replacement (new or donated) is “Energy Star.” We make sure we water landscape at the most efficient times for water use. When the church landscape was reshaped in 2012, two master gardeners volunteered to design our gardens for best use of water, and for high pollinating plants. In 2022 we received congratulations from the Manitou Pollinators group as being one of the best pollinators in the town. They brought tours through our gardens throughout the summer. We only have 1/16th of the land in lawn with the rest in flowers, trees, mulch and community gardens.
We do not have a green team. Rather, our efforts are shared across parish committees and workgroups. Creation Care has been identified as one of our congregational priorities coming out of the Priest-in-Charge process. Some things we have been doing–recycling/composting, green lawn care practices. Some things we are considering–how to move toward carbon neutrality by a certain date.
We are recycling at all three churches. At St. Barnabas we were using small plastic communion cups and for Lent have given that up, using intinction from the chalice instead. We do not have a green team.
We do not have a green team. We steward our building’s use of resources with attention to heating and cooling adjustments to minimize waste, we recycle as much as we can. We minimize driving by holding some meetings via zoom or Microsoft Teams. We practice biodiversity regarding landscape maintenance around certain sections of the church property.
We set up recycling bins all around our campus and switched from paper plates and plastic utensils to ceramic plates and stainless steel utensils before the pandemic began. i’m afraid we do NOT have a green team, but rely on the efforts of vestry members and other parishioners.
We do not have a green team. Our remodeling/renovation was completed with increased energy efficiency. We recycle, including food waste.
As we reinhabited our building after our 2 year renovation (part of the point of which was to improve the energy efficiency of our aged building) we dedicated ourselves to reducing waste in our weekly community dinners and in coffee hour, to recycling our weekly bulletins, and to collecting organic waste.
We don’t have a group that meets regularly on “greening,” we seem instead to be assuming that we’re all doing the right thing.
We have a Social Action Ministry leadership team which includes two members each from climate care, prevention of gun violence, and inclusive communities. About twelve additional people also attend our monthly meetings and take leadership roles in various activities. I am an active member of the regional Green Faith effort and use their online information and support network to communicate with other congregations.
We have adapted our cleaning and food preparation, food waste disposal practices to be more sensitive to conservation. We hope to continue to expand awareness of this need within all our ministries activities.
NO green team but our Vestry is very sensitive regarding recycle and elimination of Styrofoam coffee cups, etc.
The Cathedral recently upgraded its HVAC system to a state-of-the-art energy saving system. We have a Green Team that meets regularly.
We’ve completed a contracted full “Energy Modeling” campaign. Our physical building was assessed with the intention to transition fully to renewable energy sources (solar, geothermal) over the upcoming years. We are moving to the grant writing phase in order to raise needed funds. St. Luke’s established a Creation Care Ministry Team in 2021-2022 and we’ve oriented our Creation Care ministries and our congregation around the Episcopal Creation Care Pledge. A variety of activities have begun to take root in the past year and we’re soon to establish our 2023 plans and goals.
We recycle paper. We primarily use glass dishware and use paper dishware occasionally. We select non-toxic lawn care products.
A “green team” is being formed and will advise and pride oversight of the plan. Elements currently being researched are; full-scale recycling program, changing all bulbs to energy efficient LED bulbs. We have restored raised garden beds with new soil and will provide produce to our local food bank.
No
We don’t have a “green team.” We have a recycling bin at church. While we sometimes use disposable cups and plates, we try to use regular cups and plates during coffee hour (which we clean in the dishwasher). We keep our church at a low temperature when no one is present. We try not to use harmful chemicals and pesticides. We use LEDs instead of regular bulbs.
St. Patrick’s “Green Team” is within our Peace and Justice Ministry which meets monthly.
Since 2017 we have shared a campus (301 E. Stuart Street in Fort Collins) with two other churches, Trinity Lutheran (the property owner) and Mary of Magdala Ecumenical Catholic Church. There is a Joint Ecological Team with members from all 3 churches, and we meet on a regular basis (almost every month). St. Paul’s does not have its own green team and currently I am the only member from St. Paul’s who attends the Joint Ecological Team meetings regularly. This past year members of the Joint Ecological Team have been submitting an “Eco Tip of the Month” to the newsletters of our 3 partner churches.
replaced all light bulbs with LED, recycle, use green materials in repairs and maintence of the buildings
We are a family sized congregation and we are all committed to keeping our church green. For instance, we ceased using paper bulletins each Sunday and returned to our prayer books. We replaced windows in the sanctuary for better efficiency. We installed insulated blinds. The vestry is engaged in this work as well as the membership.
We don’t have a green team, but the whole congregation, led by the Bishop’s Committee, is practicing creation care through reduction of plastic use and regular recycling of all paper and plastics used at the church. We have a large lawn around the church, and are discussing ways to reduce the amount of water and other expenses required for its upkeep.
We haven’t started this effort, other than recycling paper goods. We also added a water system for the trees that saves on watering. We haven’t had extra funds so our grass is practically dead as we haven’t had enough money to water the property for the last three years. We keep up the columbarium which is zero scaped, and we groom the trees and property.
I lead a small group of parishioners who have replanted the church grounds with native and droughts-resistant species. Other than that, I’m not aware of any other efforts.
We have a small green team that has offered presentations on climate science and tips to reduce individual, family, and the church’s carbon foot print. We’ve found that many parishioners are doing things regularly that are good sustainable practices (recycling, composting perhaps, reducing meat consumption , etc. However, we are a small congregation with many social justice concerns, so the emphasis on care of creation has received limited time and energy.
No, we do not. Our property committee is assessing our energy use and recycling.
Our Climate Care Team meets every first Thursday of the month, and we have about 15 members, most of them are active members. Our team at Christ the King has usually completed 3 or 4 environmentally friendly projects and/or gifts for our parish each year, for the past 4 years.
We do not have a green team. We are currently committed to recycling.