Greening Spaces: Faith Communities
Energy Action Planner

The energy action planner is designed to be an easy way for individual members of your faith community to make changes in their own households to reduce their energy use and walk more lightly on the Earth.

As members of a faith-based community, we must do whatever we can to preserve the health of our sacred planet. Our Energy Action Planner has two key objectives:

This planner walks you through an easy two-week plan of energy-reducing activities to get you started. It then gives you more options to “go the distance” to continue your energy savings beyond two weeks.

Energy Action Planner Implementation

The Energy Action Planner (EAP) is a tool for faith communities to encourage and track energy reduction actions by members of the community.  This document provides a step-by-step plan of implementation for your place of worship.  These steps are based on best-practices in some faith communities, but should only be used as a guide; each faith group will have its own unique method of implementation and we encourage you to be creative!

Step One: Planning and Goal-setting

The first step of implementation is to establish a team of volunteers who can help promote the EAP in the faith community.  This may be an existing environmental committee, or you may need volunteers to start a Green Team.  For support in getting organized, please refer to the Faith & the Common Good (FCG) document “A Guide to Developing a ‘Green Team’ in your Faith Community”.  Once you have your team together, pass out the EAP to the Green Team members (see downloadable versions at the top of this page) and begin considering how it can be used at your place of worship.  It may be a good idea to conduct a practice-run of the EAP with your team so that everyone understands the process and terminology used in the document.  The group should also begin to establish goals for the EAP campaign, such as how many members of the community it hopes to reach.  This will help determine the best way to launch the EAP in the community.  Share your plans with the FCG Representative in your region.

Step Two: EAP Launch

Choosing the right place and time to launch the EAP is an important step.  Some faith communities may wish to pass the EAP around as part of a worship service, such as with the weekly bulletin or as people are leaving the building.  Other communities may chose a more indirect approach and allow individuals to come and pick up their copy at the end of the service or at a community event.  The important thing is to make a clear case to the community about what the EAP is and why everyone should take part.  Pitching it as a community effort is a great way to encourage change.  You may wish to make a special announcement at a worship, create an eco-spiritual liturgy, invite a guest speaker and/or do something memorable such as a brief drama skit about energy conservation.

Step Three: Reminder after Week One

It is important to remind people about their commitment to the EAP.  One way to do this is to follow-up with the campaign a week after the EAP has been distributed. You may wish to make an announcement to the community about the program and remind people to fill out the Week 1 – Plan section of the EAP.  Another idea is to invite a member of the community to discuss what actions they have taken over the first week in order to encourage others to do the same.  Remind everyone to bring their completed EAP back the following week.  Creating a festive mood may help encourage others to do their part so an information booth about environmental actions or local resources may be helpful.  You could also create a visual representation of what has happened so far by asking people to fill out a small paper “leaf” with their name and one thing they have done over the last week.  Then pin the “leaves” to a “tree of change” image on a prominent bulletin board at the place of worship with a list of all the different actions that are taking place. This will encourage those people who have already started and act as a reminder for those who haven’t.

Step Four: Collection Day

Collecting the EAPs should occur two weeks after they were distributed.  Collection could involve having boxes at each exit for people to drop the EAP into when they enter or leave the building.  Some faith communities have tried to make a larger statement with the collection by tying it directly into the service (such as putting the EAP in the collection plate as an offering of action during the service).  If the Green Team is able to remind people to bring their EAP back by calling ahead of the worship service and/or noting it throughout the week at other events and meetings, this would help ensure that people remember to bring the EAP back.   Remind community members that they are part of a larger change and that they will hear follow-up information about how much energy the faith community has reduced.  Ensure there is a drop-off location for any individuals who have forgotten their EAP and set a specific deadline for when they must be received.

Step Five: Data Collection

The Green Team now has the task of tallying up the results.  The first piece of information to collect is the number of EAPs that were completed. Next, go through the EAPs to collect the blue sub-totals for each category as well as the final total.  Brainstorm with your group the best way to celebrate the completion of the campaign. 

Step Six: Celebration Event

Energy conservation is an ongoing process. In order to encourage sustainable change, it is important to celebrate the successes that have occurred in the faith community and provide on-going support.  A Celebration Event is a great place to start.  The Green Team may wish to unveil the results during a worship service and creative a festive mood of success.  Other ideas include holding a pot-luck or movie-night for participants in order to discuss what they have done and develop ideas for moving forward.  You may also wish to post the results in the bulletin or on and environmental display board.  Once the EAP campaign has been completed, it is a great time to begin planning other actions that could be taken by the faith community and to enhance the capacity of the Green Team by inviting new members.

Step Seven: Final Report

Faith & the Common Good (FCG) would like to keep track of EAP results in faith communities.  When providing your final report, be sure to include the different steps and activities that happened along the way (such as how you launched the event and what was done to celebrate success).  Be sure to include the final data of participants, sub-totals for each category, and final totals for the community.  Make note of any challenges or surprises that occurred during the campaign as well as any suggestions you may have for other faith communities. Pictures are also welcome!  Send your report to the FCG Representative in your region. Please note that although this is a two-week start-up program, it is intended to initiate and promote ongoing awareness and action in energy conservation and eco-sustainability. Thank you for participating!

If you have any questions, please call your local FCG staffperson (click here).  Thanks for your help!

 

 

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