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Stepping Towards Net Zero

We care for creation and all God's gifts

The universe is an expression of God’s loving, creative nature.

We are currently in a climate emergency requiring urgent action, but the good news is that by learning about God’s love for creation and our place within it, we can learn to take care of the world we live in.

The Methodist Church has set an aspirational target of becoming a net zero carbon emissions Church by 2030.

We have already made good progress to reduce our carbon emissions by:
  • Switching to LED lighting and smart switches to avoid lights being left on accidentally.
  • Installing recycle bins, and recycling printer cartridges.
  • Moving winter worship into the Community Hall.As an example, last year’s Advent worship cost an average of £56 each Sunday to heat the main church. The heating had to come on at 4.00 am and even by 10.30 am the church didn't feel overly warm. During January, it cost an average of £15 to heat the community hall. It doesn't need to come on until 8 am and it's lovely and toastie for worship.

Wildflower/wildlife garden

In March we received a UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKPSF) capital grant of £1,135.00 towards creating an educational nature space for growing wildflowers to attract bees and butterflies, and vegetables for the local community, building bug hotels, etc. This will provide a rich environment for our young people to experience nature, learn how to conserve water, protect wildlife, reduce the use of pesticides and hopefully carry environmental responsibility into adulthood. We have asked our uniformed organisations to conduct regular audits and report the findings so that we can evaluate how we are improving biodiversity within the immediate area.

Solar panels



Solar panels provide a positive next step in reducing our carbon footprint. The solar panel supplier estimates that around 84% of our current electricity demand will be met by on site generation, saving us £75,985 over 30 years or 2,645 kg/annum of CO2.  

Reducing overheads enables us to continue to provide meeting space for the uniformed organisations and to minimise future rental increases to support existing groups and attract new ones. We will also be able to re-invest energy savings to replace our three boilers which are all approaching their end of life. Of course, if we are generating our own energy, we will also have the opportunity to look for more environmentally friendly heating to further reduce our carbon footprint.

Funding

Solar panels and battery packs do not come cheaply, so we are busy applying for funding grants. To date we have raised 50% of the anticipated costs and are extremely grateful to the following funders:
Hopefully there will be more good news to follow.



(Sunshine icon by Iconpacks)