Net Zero Churches

Growing, inclusive, evangelistic, justice-seeking
NET ZERO CHURCHES

Our vision: by 2030 at least 18 justice-seeking flourishing inherited churches will have become Silver Eco Churches.
Simple incremental steps in creation care will be a frequent justice seeking route to churches becoming revitalised.
The district will be widely seen to be “leading by example” on a shared journey to Net Zero through its own activities.

By “flourishing” we mean churches which are in a position of sufficient stability to meaningfully write a medium term mission/ growth plan and have potential to grow significantly and become noticeably even more inclusive, evangelistic and justice-seeking than they are now. These are broad themes, with indicators of fruitfulness and priorities being best defined locally. Stability and level of energy makes assessment against Eco Church criteria and capital-intensive projects more likely to be wise investments.

New churches and fragile churches with willingness to experiment with new ways of being that they might be “revitalised” have an equally significant place in our net zero vision. Such churches will often be reliant on relatively small numbers of people. They are also more likely to change or significantly remodel their places of meeting in the near future.

Key challenges will be:

• High costs of capital expenditure
• Specialist expertise needed to identify carbon-saving measures
• In Church at the Margins contexts or fragile churches, time and effort required to understand and measure compliance with Eco Church requirements may not feel a natural priority. Church members/ building users may be living in fuel poverty with regard to their own homes.
• Lack of awareness may inhibit understanding of the gospel imperative to respond to the climate and nature crises
• Lack of awareness of practical environmental actions that can be taken with minimal cost or effort
• Failure to address our own carbon footprint restricts our missional credibility
• To enable this district will:
• Provide subsidised Energy Efficiency Surveys for buildings Find out how
• Provide combination of grants/ loans to implement recommendations from Energy Efficiency Surveys
• Facilitate a District Eco Church support network, complementing and signposting other networks, and spreading awareness of how churches could take steps forward
• Model practical and prayerful consideration of environmental impacts of our own activities
• Register as an Eco District and reach Bronze Accreditation
• Achieve EPC energy efficiency rating of C or higher for all residential properties under district trusteeship, and encourage circuits to set their own environmental policies

Implementation of this vision will be overseen by our Net Zero Support Team