We are all being asked to look at our carbon footprint – how much damage the carbon we release into the atmosphere is doing.

At St Mary’s we have been taking this seriously and with the aid of a feasibility study, which was funded by a grant, we have developed a plan to tackle this.

So, how big is our footprint at the village church? The simple answer is that, like everybody else, the great majority of our impact comes from our use of energy. At St Mary’s that means electricity and gas. The electricity we use for the lighting is a small factor and we already buy ours from a guaranteed green supplier, but the gas for heating the church is a different matter. It forms just over 80% of all our energy use and releases about ten tonnes of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere every year. That’s about as much weight as a double-decker bus. Every year.

We have been looking at alternatives and one attractive answer would be to change from gas heating to electric. This would use a combination of sources to target the people rather than heating the whole building. Technology has moved a long way since the glowing overhead heaters which toasted your head and not much else. But we need to be confident that what we instal will do the job. So, we are planning a small-scale trial in a few pews over the winter where we can see how effective some of the different approaches prove to be in our context. We also have to be confident that any change to our pattern of heating will not cause damage to the building fabric, which is why we are proceeding slowly and taking advice as we go.

This careful approach means that we may not be ready to install a full system until 2024. In the meantime, our heating will be pushing out carbon dioxide. So, the church council has agreed to offset this carbon by funding the planting of trees in an area of the world where there has been deforestation and where growth is rapid, using a scheme which has been recommended by the Diocese of Leeds. This will increase the amount of carbon which is re-absorbed into vegetation and safely stored there.

We are aware too that people are beginning to move away from petrol or diesel fuelled cars to electric ones. But in the older parts of our villages, there are many roads where it is not possible to park outside your house in order to recharge the battery. So, in conjunction with the Parish Council, we are investigating the installation of electric car charging points in the church car park. This will need careful planning and we shall need to obtain grant funding to finance it, but it seems well worth investigating.

We shall be at the village fete on July 16^th with a stall and more details about all these plans. Do stop in and have a chat. We would like your views on the car charging installation as well as the rest of our plans to make St Mary’s a Carbon Neutral church.

If you want to know more, do contact Diana Linford, Peter Edwards or Lesley Higson or email tcncc2021@gmail.com