A response from our Net Zero Team

The Church of England’s very first Net Zero Carbon 2030 Impact Report is a testament to how united movement towards sustainable ways of living, working and worshipping within our church communities is taking root across the whole country. 

The report has given us a benchmark to measure against as we progress on our own journey to Net Zero Carbon in the diocese.

“It’s been positive to discover that we are lining up with national trends and statistics favourably, which means our trajectory is positive and full of further potential.”

Our diocese, from the Humber to the Wash, directly contributes to this movement through increasingly collaborative rural church networks combined with our blossoming city churches.

We are all getting bolder with our eco-led activities and are taking greater action with a vision for a safer, greener future. You can read our Diocesan environmental policy here.

A Rocha UK Award

It was a breakthrough milestone for all of us when, just as this National Church report was released, the Diocese was granted its Bronze A Rocha UK Eco Award!

It couldn’t have been achieved without the many churches, schools and communities who have been looking after the environment, signing up to Eco Church, and to the support and encouragement offered by the teams at Edward King House and through Deanery Environment Champions. 

Encouraging results

As we’ve been meeting and supporting you to implement new ways to conserve energy and live alongside creation, it’s been incredibly encouraging to see the results – from solar panel installations to the budding beginnings of eco-village visions for nature-depleted neighbourhoods. 

A personalised Net Zero Action Plan

We’re looking forward to visiting more churches to talk about personalised Net Zero Action Plans for individual churches, so please do get in touch with us to see how we can help and come to visit you.

Simply fill in this form which is found on the new Digital Learning Platform for the Diocese – ‘Learn – Grow – Share‘.

The energy footprint tool

Your Diocesan Net Zero Carbon Team has also been meticulously crunching the data we received from churches across the diocese thanks to this year’s Energy Footprint Tool (and we presented the means to do this and the benefits of using the tool back in March).

We will share the results of this Energy Data collection in late November, through our Carbon Footprint Report and associated Net Zero Carbon Action Plan, and detail the five-year roadmap for how we will achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2030. 

For all those who contributed, thank you!

Quick wins grant

You are now able to apply for a Quick Wins Grant to take steps to reduce energy and move to low/no carbon heating or lighting sources. 

Energy audits

We’re also delighted that a number of churches across the diocese which are in the top 20% of carbon emitting churches in the country have been awarded free energy audits as part of a national Church of England initiative.

Visits will be taking place throughout October and November this year.

These audits will recommend ways for these churches to become more energy efficient and move towards net zero carbon. The award comes with a package of funding to support their first decarbonising actions that come out of the audit and plans. 

Season of creation

This Season of Creation (also known as Creationtide), which began just before this report was released in September, is a fitting reminder that all that we do acts with and alongside all parts of God’s creation – human and other than human.

We remember God’s creation is not an expendable resource to be relentlessly stripped for our utility. We are encouraged to choose life and to value and cherish our common home, as gift from the God whom we adore.  

We’re here to help make this possible. This is the firstfruits of hope, and with our fresh eyes, we’re witnessing those firstfruits as they reveal themselves thanks to your efforts. But there’s still a long way to go. 

Grounded in prayer

As we ground ourselves in prayer, we will be compelled by the Spirit to stand in awe within God’s creation.

May this be constantly on our minds and in our hearts as we help each other to safeguard creation every day, through every decision that we make and every opportunity we have. 

Signed, 

The Net Zero Carbon Team

Season of Creation prayer

As Creationtide draws to a close, we offer this perenniel prayer:

–

Triune God, Creator of all,

We praise you for your goodness, visible in all the diversity that you have

created, making us a cosmic family living in a common home. Through

the Earth you created, we experience love and nourishment, home and

protection.

–

We confess that we do not relate to the Earth as a Mothering gift from

you, our Creator. Our selfishness, greed, neglect, and abuse have caused

the climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, human suffering as well as the suf-

fering of all our fellow creatures. We confess that we have failed to listen

to the groans of the Earth, the groans of all creatures, and the groans of

the Spirit of hope and justice that lives within us.

–

May your Creator Spirit help us in our weakness, so that we may know the

redeeming power of Christ and the hope found in him. May the groans of

the Spirit birth in us a willingness to serve you faithfully, so that we may

hear and heal Creation, to hope and act together with her, so that the

firstfruits of hope may blossom.

–

Loving and Creator God, we pray that you will make us sensitive to these

groans and enable us to have the same compassion as that of Jesus, the

redeeming Lord. Grant us a fresh vision of our relationship with Earth, and

with one another, as creatures that are made in your image.

In the name of the one who came to proclaim the good news to all Crea-

tion, Jesus Christ.

–

Amen.

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