By Matt Weiser
On March 18, about 60 people throughout Northern California joined a webinar to learn how to form a “Green Team” at their churches. This step is considered crucial to making churches carbon-neutral by 2030, a goal set by the Northern California Episcopal Diocese at its annual meeting in October 2022.
The webinar was hosted by Sarah Paulos, community engagement and programs manager at Interfaith Power and Light (IPL). The diocese signed a contract with IPL to customize its carbon footprint calculator for each of our churches, which will make calculating current emissions much easier for all of us.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is released when fossil fuels are burned, whether through transportation, electricity usage or heating and cooling. This has boosted C02 levels in the atmosphere, which is causing the planet to warm. The C02 concentration in our atmosphere hasn’t been this high in about 4 million years.
The U.S. produces about 28 percent of the world’s C02 emissions, though we are only 4 percent of the world’s population.
Paulos said it’s important to form a Green Team (two or three people minimum) at each church in order to calculate emissions, a vital first step: Before you can eliminate carbon dioxide emissions, you need to know how much you’re emitting. The team will then coordinate a plan to reduce emissions to zero that is unique to each church. This may involve installing solar panels, managing vehicle travel or installing new heating/cooling systems.
“You need a team of people to carry out this work,” she said. “This includes developing fluency and speaking out about why we as people of faith are called to talk to others about climate change.”
Paulos is founder of the Cool Congregations program at IPL, an initiative to help churches of all denominations do their part for climate change. The Cool Congregations website is filled with resources to help churches do this.
Paulos said it’s important for Green Team members to prepare their own story about why they decided to tackle the carbon problem, and to share that with others in their congregation.
“You don’t need to be an expert on climate change, but you need a genuine, heartfelt story about what motivates you. Never underestimate the power of narrative to bring about change,” she said.
Developing that story could begin with questions like these:
— Why do you care enough to take action on climate?
— What’s your special concern about climate change?
— What does your faith tradition have to say about caring for Earth?
— What do you believe about caring for the Earth?
“Caring for community becomes a central part of what it means to be a person of faith,” Paulos said. “To keep the faith we must keep the Earth.”
She offered these tips to form a Green Team:
— Get approval from faith leaders at your church.
— Write a mission statement to build identity and purpose.
— Discuss plans with your faith leader and governing board at your church.
— Determine how the team fits into the organizational structure of your church.
— Make sure a member of the governing board at your church is on the Green Team
— Communicate: Offer regular updates to your faith leader, governing board and congregation, both in person and in newsletters and websites.
“A strong Green Team is vital to a successful project,” Paulos said.
If you missed the hourlong webinar or want to review it, a recording can be viewed on YouTube.
A second webinar will be held on April 29 at 1 p.m. The focus of this webinar will be on learning to use the carbon calculator web tool that IPL is developing for our diocese. Ideally, participants should have formed a Green Team at their church by then.
To register for that webinar, contact Miriam Casey, convenor of the Diocesan Commission on the Environment, at ednccoe@gmail.com.
Matt Weiser attends St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Sacramento. He and his wife, Alexa Mergen, publish the online newsletter GreenBeing: Living Well on a Troubled Planet.
