The Greening West Louisville Program empowers congregations in West Louisville to reduce their energy costs and care for God's creation by providing free energy audits and energy consulting services. The purpose of this program is to reduce the impact of Louisville's coal-burning power plants, which are all located in West Louisville, and to keep money inside communities that would otherwise be siphoned off to the utility companies. The coal burning plants in the western part of the city and the pollution from those plants adversely affects the air and water quality in West Louisville.
So far fourteen congregations have received energy audits and are on their way to a brighter energy future!
In addition to delivering energy audits for houses of worship, Greening West Louisville has three main objectives:
1. Reduce the energy consumption of the congregation's buildings and save them money.
2. Educate the congregation's members about the environmental effects of energy use.
3. Educate the congregation members about reducing energy use in their own homes how it can save them money.
Environmental Justice
The placement of low-income housing in close proximity to chemical plants, the lack of affordable housing away from the coal-burning power plants, the increased incidents of cancer in West Louisville point to a serious environmental justice problem in Louisville. Greening West Louisville ties closely into the Environmental Justice Tours that Kentucky IPL is co-sponsoring, as well as our advocacy for environmental justice legislation. With 95% of Louisville's electricity coming from coal and most of the coal burned in and around West Louisville coming from Appalachia, reducing the consumption of electricity will help reduce mountain-top removal coal mining and its devastating effects on the people of Eastern Kentucky.
The whole process of measuring energy usage, performing energy audits, implementing efficiency improvements and practices will be documented in the form of case studies. These case studies will be a valuable tool that will motivate other congregations to make improvements through the demonstration of measurable results.
We need your help by donating your time, talent or treasure to the project. Email us if you are interesting in volunteering your time and talent. Click here to donate money. We are also looking for donations of compact florescent bulbs for this project. Please drop bulbs off at our offices at 1924 Newburg Road, Louisville or email us if you have any bulbs to donate.
Thank you to our donors that make this program possible:
Catholic Campaign for Human Development Executive Director, Ralph McCloud (center) and Catholic Charities Mark Bouchard (far right) at the awards dinner with KIPL Executive Director, Tim Darst (left) and KIPL Communications and Outreach Director Rosetta Fackler.
Catholic Campaign for Human Development Executive Director, Ralph McCloud handing a grant check to Kentucky IPL Communications and Outreach Director, Rosetta Fackler.