Kentucky Interfaith Power and Light has joined the national Interfaith Power and Light Office to promote its Cool Congregations program here in Kentucky. We invite you to join the many faith communities across the nation that take seriously the call from their faith to care for their neighbor by caring for our common home. Find cool congregation resources here. They are using Interfaith Power & Light’s unique Cool Congregations stewardship program resources to reduce the climate change emissions from their facilities, help their members reduce emissions at home, and serve as a leader in the wider community. They often save hundreds of dollars in the process.
Interfaith Power & Light’s Cool Congregations program offers resources to guide you every step of the way: taking a “before” snapshot of your carbon footprint, finding ways to reduce, educating your congregation, taking an “after” snapshot, and celebrating the success! Once you have your worship facility reducing energy use, there are resources to get your congregants involved in reducing energy use at home. This will be especially useful to c
ongregations who don’t have a building or rent their building! So, get the Cool Congregations Contest kit here. The Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program estimates that if America’s 370,000 congregations cut energy use just 20% it would save nearly $630 million per year that could be applied to missions. These energy savings would prevent the equivalent reduction in climate pollution of eliminating emissions from 480,000 cars, or planting 60,000 trees every year!
Interfaith Power & Light’s Cool Congregations program offers many ways to help you cut the carbon out of your ecological footprint in your faith community and at home, showing groups how to:
Form a strong green team and inspire your congregation with educational events and
opportunities to make your environmental priorities known to your political leaders.
Suggestions for
projects – what other congregations have done.
Resources for action including the popular 25 Steps Under $25, and 25 Steps Over $25 to saving energy in your congregation
Energy Audits – where to get one and how to do it yourself
Apply for Cool Congregation Certification or to win awards of up to $1000 in the five areas of Energy Saver, Renewable Role Model, Sacred Grounds, and Community Inspiration, Cool Planner, Electric Vehicle Leader. More information about these areas of work can be found here.
Join your Kentucky IPL Green Leaders’ team to keep the idea pipeline for further actions your congregation might take to mitigate its own carbon footprint, the carbon footprint of the households that make up your faith group, or even ways your congregation’s green team could take steps to educate its neighbors about climate change mitigation.
Part
ner with Kentucky’s IPL to remain informed regarding ways to engage policy makers to prioritize climate change mitigation policies.
Contact Kentucky IPL Executive Director Elisa Owen (director@kentuckyipl.org or 5027240150) for more information on how to use these resources to support your congregation’s climate mitigation efforts!