Work out your church’s carbon footprint to help care for God’s creation
The Church of England’s Energy Footprint Tool allows churches to enter fuel and power use from the previous year. In 2024, 74% of churches in Ely Diocese completed the Energy Footprint Tool - we would love to get that number even higher!
The data collected from the tool will help your church understand its carbon footprint and will mean you may be eligible for grants to help kickstart your net zero projects.
This work is an essential part of caring for God’s Creation, by helping to combat global heating and climate change.
The easy-to-use online tool will tell your church what your carbon footprint is, based on the energy you use to heat and light your buildings.
The Church of England’s General Synod voted in February 2020 for the whole of the Church to achieve net zero carbon by 2030. The vote recognised that responding to the climate crisis is an essential part of our responsibility to safeguard God’s creation and achieve a just world.
The Net Zero by 2030 programme was then established and as part of this, the EFT has been created to collect data to establish a baseline and help churches locally find out their carbon footprint.
Once you have gathered your energy bills for the previous year, it should only take about 30 minutes to fill the EFT in and the results will really help a church to kickstart and monitor the progress of carbon reducing projects as we journey together to reach net zero carbon.
What do I have to do?
Simply enter your church’s energy figures from the year before. Once you have entered all the data, you will immediately receive a report and results on your computer or smartphone. This includes:
- The church’s carbon footprint in CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent).
- How your church's carbon footprint has changed in recent years.
What do I need to get started?
You will need your Parish Returns login information to access the Energy Footprint Toolkit. This is the same login as for your church’s Finance and Mission Returns. Alternatively, you can arrange a separate login for your church’s EFT Returns by emailing jackie.williamson@elydiocese.org, please allow 2 working days for this to be arranged.
You will need your utility bills for the year before: electricity, gas, oil, or whichever other fuel you use. For example, if you are completing it in 2025, you need your 2024 bills. If you have solar panels, find information on their generation over the preceding year.
You will also want to know which tariff you have with your energy provider, i.e. is it a green (or renewable energy) tariff or a standard (fossil fuel) tariff – as this information is not always provided on the energy bills themselves.
Key updates
New questions have been added to find out about all the buildings in your parish. A new online building scope checker tool can help you determine which of these buildings you need to report on and what information you need to provide for each.
When you have finished your survey, you will now see a report which shows the total carbon emissions for your Parish and then the carbon emissions for each building you have reported energy use data for.
The list of approved green tariffs is changing. This has impacted whether the EFT will automatically offset some of your carbon emissions when you select a particular supplier. Look out for an extensive list of approved green energy suppliers later in the year – the Church of England has appointed specialist consultants to work on this.
You don’t need to enter work-related travel expenses this year.
The EFT is closing earlier this year - 30 June 2025, to give more time to analyse the data and share the results back in time for diocesan synods in the autumn
We’re asking parishes to fill in the EFT before 31 May 2025. After which we will be contacting parishes directly. The aim is for 90% of parishes to submit their EFT. You can find it on the online Parish Returns system.
What do I need to get started?
You will need your utility bills for all your church or Parish buildings for 2024: electricity, gas, oil, or whichever other fuel you use. If you have solar panels, find information on their generation over the preceding year.
Before you start collecting energy use data for your buildings, you need to determine whether a building is ‘in scope’. This online building scope checker tool will help you work this out. But essentially, if a building is not owned by the Church of England then you do not need to report on the building.
How do I find out more information and keep up to date?
Sign up to the Church of England’s monthly Environment Bulletin - Any updates will be posted in the bulletin throughout the year.
You can also find answers to EFT FAQs here (click through and scroll down to the bottom of the webpage).
Please contact our Net Zero Carbon Officer, Sacha Watson on sacha.watson@elydiocese.org, if you need any further assistance.