sMeasure so far

I put up a couple of charts on the EcoCongregation notice board showing energy use and carbon dioxide emissions in recent weeks. These charts are just for the gas in the refectory (where there are various meetings during the week) and for the electricity. There was a very obvious dip in electricity use during the Easter holiday (2-16 April) when the children were not in school, although curiously not in the gas (despite fewer meetings). Gas did dip in the good weather before the holiday. Technically, I think, since we use Ecotricity New Energy Plus the CO2 measurement for the electricity might be discounted although it would still be good to reduce the usage!

Recycling

As recycling facilities in Reading have improved our micro-recycling at church has changed. I put this poster up a couple of weeks ago to summarise what we do now.

Christian Aid week approaching

After this Sunday's fantastic Taize Worship Together we had our usual first-Sunday-of-the-month lunch together. It was, as it commonly is, meat free, and the profits from the donations given afterwards will all go to Christian Aid this week.

In between the service and the meal Sarah from the Oxford Christian Aid office gave us an inspiring talk on this year's Christian Aid week theme 'Let's give the tools to help people out of poverty'.

As well as encouraging us to remember that lots of us doing a little together makes a huge difference, she mentioned that there are lots of 'alternative' ways to give to Christian Aid. She cited the Good Little Company's ethical sausages available in Waitrose (I was astonished that 7p a pack would add up to such a large sum, although I'm afraid I forgot to note it down). At the Christian Aid website there is a whole list of different ways to support them including through Traidcraft, Ecotricity and Triodos Banking, as well as cartridge recycling, internet access . . . .

In the meantime we have our own alternative means of giving because Hugh and Judy have wonderfully invited us to a barn dance to celebrate their anniversary and asked that all gifts should be donations to Christian Aid.

Measuring the Carbon Footprint

When we were assessed for our EcoCongregation award the major issue we were asked to address was measuring our carbon footprint. It's something I've nonetheless been putting off because the whole thing seems so complex - on a household basis two different calculators can give widely varying results.

However, Oxford diocese have now made it impossible to resist by engaging with sMeasure to allow all churches in the diocese to use their energy measuring software free for this year as part of a pilot project in the hope that the wider Church of England will be involved in subsequent years. Two weeks ago I finally bit the bullet and set up an account. Unfortunately it is impossible to measure the energy use of the church separately from that of St John's school, although some sort of guestimate is possible based on the proportion of bills we've agreed to pay. This Monday I put in my second readings and discovered that the combined school and church emissions of carbon dioxide for the past week came to just over 2 tonnes. Sobering information.

The same software is available for any domestic household to use for free through iMeasure. It is really quite easy even for a technophobe like me and I can see the urge to get those measurements down could be quite constructive.