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 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)
• A simple assessment of your buildings’ efficiency, in graphical form
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 2024, you need your 2023 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.
If you want to include a separate church hall or other building, then you need the bills for this too. If you want to exclude an area which is permanently rented out to tenants and sub-metered, you will want this information to hand.
For most churches, we already know the floor area. If we don't already hold this information, you will need a sensible estimate of the m2 floor area of the church, and any other associated buildings you are inputting, such as the church hall.
You will also need a sensible estimate of the number of person-hours that the church is used throughout the year. Please remember when entering this data that a good estimate is fine – these numbers do not need to be 100% accurate, and long as they are in a relevant ball park.
The system is open until 31 July each year, we’re asking parishes to fill in the EFT before 30 June. 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:https://parishreturns.churchofengland.org/
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.