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.
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.
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.
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‘.
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
After six and a half years of dedicated service as Diocesan Secretary in the Diocese of Lincoln, The Revd Canon David Dadswell has decided to retire. His final day will be Tuesday 31 December 2024.
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