C3 Works with Congregations on Climate
I had the pleasure of joining Kendall Crawford, Director of Virginia Interfaith Power and Light, at Westminster Church last month to talk about both state and local action happening on climate. Earlier in 2018 we worked with Virginia IP&L to have a fruitful listening session of faith leaders on climate at CitySpace in downtown Charlottesville to begin to learn about what various congregations are doing for the climate and any obstacles they may be facing.
If you don’t know VAIP&L, they are a great organization who empowers faith communities all across the state to achieve sustainable living. Their mission is to grow healthy faith communities and advance climate justice through education, advocacy, and worship.
Westminster’s Green Team asked us to come out and talk about both state and local level policy and action. Kendall gave an update on their efforts and I talked about the local climate goal setting and action happening at the City and County as well as action everyone can take here locally with C3’s help.
The talk was just days after our Better Business Challenge Awards Night where Peace Lutheran Church on 29 North received one of our Better Business “Champion” Awards. They completed several actions from a list of 45 actions on the Energy Scorecard with the help of our C3 UVA student volunteers.
The truth is there are many actions that congregations can take in their facility to save energy and reduce their climate impacts. By taking a leadership role, congregations can not only educate their members to save energy and implement climate-friendly lifestyle choices at home with the Home Energy Challenge, but they can also join C3’s Better Business Challenge to address the day-to-day operations and energy use at their own facility.
Claire Habel has been invited back to Westminster this August to host a “Power Party” -- C3’s approach to helping homeowners and renters reduce their carbon footprint in a fun, friendly, team-based approach. We look forward to what savings their team can achieve in Season Three of the Home Energy Challenge.
If you’d like to have a member of C3 come to your congregation to help, email claire@cvilleclimate.org or join the next Better Business Challenge.