Weighing In

As you and your community join the low-carbon revolution, Power Lite invites you to weigh in, celebrating your shrinking energy footprint.

Climate-Neutral Houses of Worship

Weigh in by counting up the Power Lite Offsets achieved by your community and its members. The offset concept is borrowed from the trading system established in the Kyoto Protocol, the climate protection treaty ratified by over 140 nations. Every lasting reduction you make in your usage of electricity or gas, each tree you cause to be planted, each contribution you make to alternative energy, should be logged by your faith community as a Power Lite Offset.

Offsets are milestones toward a climate neutral world, and a living demonstration of reverence for the Creator. Clearly, though a house of worship can be made more energy-efficient, it will retain some CO₂ impact for the foreseeable future. But when the Power Lite Offsets inspired within its walls equal that impact, it becomes a climate-neutral house of worship, a potent symbol of a world on the mend. 

GIPL is committed to achieving climate neutrality for each of its member congregations. Depending on the size of your building and the number of members changing their energy habits, this may be a goal achievable in less than a year. GIPL can help you interpret your congregation’s energy bills to estimate the distance to this climate milestone. If necessary, your campaign can be waged one climate-neutral worship service at a time, gathering momentum. GIPL can help you decide on a phasing strategy.

Suggestions for a Climate Neutral campaign

Designate a Power Lite Offsets Treasurer (PLOT) - The PLOT will hear from members who, for example, purchased an Energy Star appliance or a fuel-efficient vehicle. He/she also will record results of compact fluorescent sales. Using tools on the GIPL web site, the PLOT computes the estimated CO₂ offsets and logs them to the congregation’s treasury of CO₂ reductions.

Collect commitments - During an annual giving campaign or at another time, provide cards on which congregants can promise to take energy-saving steps. Later, follow up with individuals, and pass along completed commitments to the PLOT for recording.

Involve the children - Kids can “audit” energy usage in a variety of ways, from noticing unnecessary lighting to learning how to read electricity and gas meters. Even a light left off for more hours can be logged as an offset.

Celebrate progress

As climate-neutral goals are met, tell everyone.  Some ideas:

• Prominently display a progress graphic, such as a tree with added leaves or a sun pie graph
• Regularly use part of worship services to link Power Lite to biblical themes
• Promote coverage in the media, beginning with your congregation’s newsletter 
• Host a GIPL speaker for a program to honor Power Lite supporters