ArticleBlog | Why bother about my church’s carbon footprint?
Why bother about my church’s carbon footprint?
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 13.03.21
Some years ago, when doing research for an MSc, I contacted all 500 plus churches in my local diocese with a list of questions about why churches do or don’t take action on climate change.
While I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my statistical analysis, the overwhelming conclusion was that churches which understand the biblical imperative to care for creation will look for ways to put this into practice. Churches responded with a myriad of ways in which they were working to reduce their carbon emissions – from changing the lightbulbs to switching to renewable energy, although ‘We all bring our own blankets to church’ might be considered taking things too far!
At Climate Stewards, we believe that Jesus’ command to love our neighbour means that Christians are called to take action on climate change. The parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), reminds us that, in today’s world, our neighbours include our global neighbours, who may be facing crop failure, floods and droughts caused by climate change; our future neighbours, who will see the much harsher impacts of climate change; and our non-human neighbours, who face extinction as a result of climate change and land use change.
Climate Stewards’ strapline is ‘Reduce what you can, offset the rest’. We help churches and individuals to tackle climate change in three ways. Firstly, we provide free online tools to help you calculate your carbon footprint; secondly, we provide advice on how to reduce your footprint; and finally we enable you to compensate for your unavoidable carbon emissions by supporting community carbon projects overseas.
