Learn about how your house of worship can take steps to reduce its carbon footprint through National IPL’s Cool Congregations program.
Hear about the program from National IPL’s Community Engagement and Programs Director, Sarah Paulos, and see what a Cool Congregation looks like through the work of Covenant Christian Church in Urbandale, Iowa and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Decorah, Iowa.
Hello everybody my name is Ren Matson I use they them pronouns and I am one of the program Associates with Iowa Interfaith Power and Light I would like to thank you all for joining us on this leap day to learn about the cool congregations program and how our faith
Communities can take steps to reduce our carbon Footprints before we get started I have an original Leap Day reflection I would like to share with you all leap day a day so special unique and strange four years ago my newborn nephew had just turned two months old four
Years from now he will be eight years old which I do not like to think about four years ago a global pandemic was brewing four years from now now I can only hope that covid-19 will be a thing of the past four years ago I was a full-time
Student living in an oncampus apartment in Cedar Falls Iowa four years from now who knows in the grand scheme of things four years isn’t a whole lot of time but so much can change in just four years who knows where we’ll be by Leap Day 2028 I hope these next four years are
Filled with climate action within our communities I hope these next four years are filled with love for our common home and for one another I hope these next four years are filled with Beautiful Moments however that might look to each of us finally I hope these next four
Years are filled with hope for a sustainable future for us and the generations to come now I would like to introduce our first speaker for tonight’s webinar Sarah Palos Sarah is the community engagement and programs director for Interfaith Power and Light she was awakened to climate action with the proposal to
Build a huge Coal Fired power plant in her community in Iowa her response was to create the cool congregations program to help members of her home congregation reduce their energy use and care for our common home cool congregations is now a program of IPL prior to IPL Sarah served
For 12 years as the program and Outreach coordinator for Iowa IPL training green teams in Iowa and 16 other states to conduct the cool congregations program and with that I’ll pass it to Sarah great thank you so much thank you so much Ren that was a lovely Reflection
By the way really enjoyed that um I’d forgotten today was leap leap year day so yay very special time and I just want to thank you very much for this invitation to speak about cool congregations in Iowa I serve as the community engagement and program director for Interfaith
Power and lights national office which includes overseeing the IPL National cool congregations program and I’d like to tell you the story of how I got involved with IPL I was awakened to climate change with the proposal to build a huge Coal Fired power plant in watero Iowa
Right next to my town where I was living Cedar Falls I went to protest meetings but I was uncomfortable I much prefer to say yes to something rather than no I put the no coal sign in my yard but then my neighbor came over one one day and said
You know they want to build that plant to meet consumer demand if you really want to do something you could reduce your electricity use well I was a bit embarrassed but I was very struck by what he said it made sense so together with a few friends at
My church at that time St Luke’s Episcopal in Cedar Falls I created the cool congregations program to help members of my home congregation reduce their energy use at home we asked participants to see if they could reduce their carbon emissions by 10% the same amount as a traditional Financial tithe
To the church only this time a tithe to the Earth our common home the combined carbon footprint of all the member households was far greater than the carbon footprint of the church building so we thought we could have the most sign ific impact with households we invited participants to
Join a small group to meet several times to measure their initial carbon footprint and then to find ways to reduce and support one another in our efforts and then measure again at the end of the year to see how we did well onethird of my congregation
Took part the first year and reduced on average 10% in the first year and at that time if everyone in Iowa reduced 10% it would be the equivalent of taking 64,000 cars off the road in Iowa for a year that’s a pretty big impact so we held a recognition ceremony at church
And we gave out awards for Biggest Loser the only time I’ve ever known anyone to want that award and least FL Lighty for people who flew the least number of miles and biker dude for the fellow who cut Transportation emissions by riding his bike to work and word got out about our cool
Congregations program and other churches began contacting us on how to do it the news media came the brand new Iowa IPL heard about it and asked us to present at their big kickoff meeting in De Moine and then Iowa IPL asked us to create a training program and take it on the road
We spent a year driving around Iowa showing other congregations how to run a program like this but then the other members of my team had had enough so they stopped going around but I kept at it for another 12 years as the program and Outreach coordinator for Iowa IPL with representatives of 350
Congregations attending cool congregations training during that time period the training included how to form a strong Green Team how to educate about climate change and form small groups to conduct the cool congregations program participants were LED through a process to write their own story about why they care enough to do something about
Climate change I consider that the most essential tool in their toolkit as people of faith we live by story we understand the power of narrative to bring about social change and we need that story to persuade others to join us participants were also trained to measure household carbon emissions using
An Excel spread sheeet designed by a waterl John Deere engineer who was part of our original team while IPL National heard about the program they helped fund it and they also asked me to travel to 16 other state Affiliates to train them in the program and while that Iowa I also
Developed and delivered additional educational programs around the state including food Faith climate connecting the dots The Good Life redefined addressing how our stuff contributes to climate change faith for energy equity on environmental justice and common good on advocacy and I also served as the faith caucus coordinator for reamp it was a good
Run I’ll tell you about the IPL National version of cool congregations which focuses on reducing emissions of congregational facilities in just a few minutes and now I’ll turn it over to you Ren awesome thank you so much Sarah now it’s time to take a look at some cool congregations in
Action I would like to introduce Tom small Iowa IPL supporter and member of cool congregation certified Covenant Christian Church in Urbandale Iowa welcome Tom well thank you very much and I also want to introduce my wife Linda over here a very important part of what we do at
Church is to have uh Linda’s ideas Linda likes to read a lot and very valuable resource also good about getting a group together and I think um as I look at my notes Here I I think that’s the most important thing uh just about this exciting program and I I’d encourage
Every church just to check out the Cool congregation’s website because you can walk through it and best of all it’s something that a group can look at and we’re educating ourselves and each other in the process so uh the whole idea uh Linda and I are concerned about reducing
Our carbon footprint and and the church is as well but also has Advantage advantages of saving money there are three areas of the program that I I see as very beneficial and we constantly look at how we heat and cool each separate room in our church building so
Um this is an ongoing Dynamic energy audit and as we review our budget for the church from year to year we can see not only how we’ve held the line but actually reduced our energy uh costs both Gas and Electric um the important part of this is just as Sarah was saying
Just go through and look at your energy a energy audit and don’t be overwhelmed by the words energy audit it’s simply walking into every room with a separate piece of paper writing down the number of Lights the type of Lights what can we do to replace uh old light fixtures with
Biot treci with LED lights how can we save money there oh oh by the way we uh have a Earth Day event coming up but we’ve also done it uh last couple years where um with two other churches and there’s a value of getting together and sharing these big events with other churches
We’ve given way over 500 LED light bulbs and so constantly we’re saving money year after year by putting those in in place so going back to the energy audit just simply go in look at what’s going on how much uh this room is used um uh
Hours per day hours per week uh what’s plugged in uh with electricity especially Sarah and how much does that cost but also uh looking at that then where where are we can uh close off a a room for a while and maybe heat it to 55 Dees and
Cool it to 85 degrees so it’s called the 5585 plan at our church uh I share this uh and we go through um the uh programmable thermostats and really work on the details constantly there um Ren we’re ready for uh that first slide there so what we have there is probably
My most valuable tool that I have used over and over uh every piece of paper has a copy of it on the back uh with various notes if I do a meeting notes I’ll also include that uh at the board meeting recently I put together the entire programmable thermostat program so we
Really are emphasizing this but here’s the value if you look real close at your screen if you want to save 30% on your cooling electricity run your thermostat up to 82 or better yet 85 for those rooms that don’t require it now how about you want to save more money in
The wintertime in a room you go down to 60 degrees and look at this you immediately save 30% on your gas natural gas bill this U this comes from M Amer and you can go to the website uh there and get your own copy but that’s what we really focus on
And there’s a benefit of that so can you imagine your utility bill dropping by 10 or 20% um then uh we encourage people to cancel events on extreme weather conditions either too hot or too cold in the wintertime our Minister and assistant are really good about uh using a uh just
A room heater an electric heater uh in the room that they are occupying throughout the week uh so this is constantly on our mind and every little step really adds up uh we uh and one way to get a point across I think in a group
Is to say well uh we spend $84 uh a year on electricity to light our sign with these lights uh that’s a little bit but over the last 10 years we spent $840 and what benefit did we get out of that so we immediately unplugged those lights no problem at all other things
Are just that important so that’s where we are this constant review then this is point number two then serves as a top of Mind model for what we can do at our homes I really see the church as being a model like Sarah was saying and we take
That elsewhere so the leads us to why do we do it Linda found this just today in a book called The W walk it’s our Lon study at our church but uh why do we do this Proverbs 31 8-9 speak out on behalf of the voiceless and
For the rights of all who are vulnerable perhaps our grandchild speak out in order to judge with righteousness and to defend the needy and the poor excuse me a second somebody’s okay so back to this then this leads us to be mindful and support the advocacy of IPL organization
And what they are doing to go where uh we can’t go uh so perhaps uh 30 or 40% of our individual footprint is spent also at local state and federal government and we need to be aware of policies that affect climate pollution so this is a kind of approach with it
Constantly on the top of our mind this can be a vector as we make wise decisions on our spending so when a question comes up and we had the chance to share our building with another congregation on Saturday mornings Sunday afternoons with another congregation all of a sudden our
One footprint was doing the purpose of three footprint so we feel good about that we had an opportunity last year to have a a community garden or Urban Garden uh through a service there that deals with uh new people in the neighborhood uh immigrants and uh we’re just it was an automatic decision
Feeling good about this and then one other thing here this is kind of crazy but um at some of our events we hand out not only light bulbs but this is a battery powerered um Lantern and uh it’s a chance to be prepared and share our preparation uh to show compassion uh for
People with more frequent severe weather like power outages and it was surprising last summer how many people commented on uh their lantern that they were able to use and made all the difference for them so those are some things uh that really come to mind I’m excited to have this
Opportunity to share of how valuable this program is and I want everybody every congregation just to capture uh how this works um I’ll have more comments for the Q&A time if uh if anything comes up thank You Ren for this opportunity awesome thank you so much
Tom it’s inspiring to hear how big of a difference we can make by just making smaller changes I would now like to introduce a another cool congregation certified Faith Community Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Dora Iowa Jim and Liz britz are 30-year Good Shepherd Lutheran church members they
Are pictured here with their pastor at the time Pastor Amy zul Larsson presenting their cool congre congregation certificate together Jim and Liz formed Mission green LLC in order to help good shepher replace aging hbac infrastructure and add enough solar to move the congregation towards a carbon neutral Net Zero Energy use Future these
Efforts happened just before the inflation reduction act which now allows nonprofits to accomplish this same goal without needing an outside entity the congregation will only the installation following a six-year contract with Mission green they will no longer have to spend any money on energy costs unfortunately Jim and Liz couldn’t
Be here with us tonight but they did pass along a wonderful overview video showing all of the changes made to Good Shepherd which I will share with you now good Shephard Lutheran Church of dor Iowa was founded by local residents in 1958 they purchased land that had
Formerly been a sheep pasture later in 1958 they broke ground on the original Sanctuary the building to the left as well as the education R in the center by 1988 the congregation had outgrown its original sanctuary and built the existing facility on the right the congregation began the journey
To a carbon neutral Net Zero future with a 2012 energy star certification the entire facility was switched to LED lighting in 2015 and a power purchase agreement with a congregant placed the first solar array on an adjacent Annex Building by 2018 the original eight natural gas furnaces had begun to fail and the
Congregation undertook a major renovation of the original education RNG this included installing four five ton geothermal heat pumps to replace half of the gas furnaces these heat pumps were supported by a large geothermal field in the backyard consisting of 15 horizontal boards in 2022 Good Shepard members Jim and Liz
Fritz formed up company Mission green LLC to help the congregation replace the four remaining rooftop furnaces on the sanctuary Mission green proposed to add additional solar including a solar array on the perola as well as a rooftop solar array on the education RNG the rooftop array included 52 bifacial panels Genera
21 kilowatt of energy while the pera array featured 50 bifacial panels generating 27 en the original building was heated with fuel oil until the 1960s when natural gas became available old fuel oil barrel was removed during the mission green project three five ton air-to-air heat pumps were installed outside the
Sanctuary variable refrigerant flow lines run through the building individual indoor units every room in the entire facility is zoned individually for Heating and Cooling the congregation also committed to planting more trees in our green space in the past five years we’ve planted over 40 trees and bushes to lower our carb
Footprint our church Garden tended by congregation members supports our local food pantry this dark brown grassy area will become a 4500 pollinator Prairie using wild flowers native to the Iowa Tall Grass prairies this eliminates a lot of useless Mowing and lowers our carbon footprint it will help support butterflies bees and other pollinators
Vital to our planet ecosystem climate change is real and we’ve experienced significant drought this summer the back lawn still needs much Reclamation following the construction project done by Mission green we hope our entire lawn books this dream next spring the pergola is a post and beam construction by a local crafts and
Utilizes Douglas fur Timbers the racking system for the pera solar array is an Innovative black anodized aluminum product that provides a watertight area below the permeable P Courtyard located just outside of our fellowship hall sits a top a huge French grain to handle all the rooftop runoff that had been
Problematic in the past it is made up of over 200 tons of crushed gravel a stylized cross in the courtyard Center is an omage through the original cross designed for the 1958 building it fell into disrepair and was removed now it’s back the members of Good Shepard have
Been solid supporters of this project a congregational vote to approve the collaboration with Mission green passed by an overwhelming 99 to4 majority we are all proud of our efforts to move the needle to mitigate climate change and end the use of fossil fuels our facilities are now 100%
Electric and carbon neutral we are Net Zero Energy facility as we generate sufficient power for all of our needs on site with 56 kilowatts of solar and 110% net metering with Alliant Energy we continue to strive to lessen our carbon footprint following a six-year power purchase agreement and a lease with
Mission green the congregation will own all of the new equipment this will allow the money previously spent on energy costs to be used to further the church’s Mission we hope this model will inspire others to join us in the quest to save the planet
I will now pass it back to Sarah to talk about how you can get more involved with the cool congregations program awesome thank You Ren that was an amazing video of a congregation in your state how inspirational um so I’m going to start by answering the question first what is
IPL innerfaith Power and Light inspires and mobilizes people at Faith and conscience to take bold and just action on climate change we work with individuals and Faith communities of all major Faith Traditions Across the Nation and Iowa is one of our leading Affiliates and many of you on this call
Are interested in reducing emissions of your congregational facilities using the new federal incentives I understand from Ren so I’m going to propose an audacious goal for you to consider next slide many denominations are passing resolutions to have zero missions by 2030 the Presbyterians the ELCA United Methodist Church Disciples of Christ the
Episcopal church and many others these resolutions really do have an impact as congregations from these denominations are actually going carbon free moving away from fossil fuels entirely and setting an example for others in their Community like good sheeper for instance next slide and so I just want to show you a
High level overview of the basic steps to get to this zero emissions stage just to plant the seed in your head for a long-term goal so first you need to form a green team to carry out the work of getting to zero emissions this involves teaching your congregation why this goal is
Important and then you need to determine the process your green team needs to follow and I’ll give you a few steps here the first step is to assess your building in two ways Tom was talking about assessing their building I want to suggest first that you measure a
Baseline of the carbon footprint of your buildings so that you can check your progress towards your goal and you can do this with the IPL calculator that I’ll show you in just a minute and the second way to assess is to get a professional energy AUD it someone who
Comes and examines the building and suggests actions the congregation can take to cut their energy use you can ask Irene for suggestions for energy Auditors in Iowa some of your utility companies in Iowa will offer a free energy audit and the next step is to write up a
Plan of action based on the energy Auditor’s suggestions which actions should you take first that would reduce your energy use the most for the least amount of money how to finance it and who on your team will do it if your goal is getting to Zero by 2030 you have six
Years that can be enough time and after the completing your project the final step is to educate others with your example and that is how we lifted up the story of good shepher to serve as an example um you already saw their video they won the top prize in ipl’s National
Cool congregations challenge this year with a $1,000 award for their work to achieve their zero emissions status and I think you heard about them from Ren before so I won’t repeat that information um I just want to say again though that they completed their work before the federal incentives were
Available so they couldn’t use them but you can today so you’re going to see their slideshow but it’s also oh you saw their slideshow but it’s also posted in their story on the IPL National website I encourage you to read their whole story which Jim Fritz himself wrote it’s
Full of lots of good details um of what they achieved in the process to get there and um I guess Ren if you want to put the link in the chat now so people can read the story and watch the full video later at their Leisure and the next slide
Please is about IPL resources oh I guess we did good sheeper one more thank you um these are the resources that I’m going to show you now for cutting emissions to the cool congregations program at the national level IPL National adopted the Iowa program and adapted it the ad adapted it from the
Household version which it was in Iowa um to be a programed for congregational facilities instead because the steps are basically the same form a green team assess plan carry out your plan reassess and then celebrate at the end next slide please a startup guide is available on the IPL National website for free
Download mod including information on how to start a green team to carry out the work uh tips for reducing energy and more and um oh I see Ren already put the link in the chat for the cool congregation National website where you can find the startup guide and next
Slide we also have two carbon emissions trackers we call them one for congregational facilities and one for households and these trackers or calculators were designed by a leading scientist in the field of carbon emission tracking Dr Chris Jones the director of the cool climate Network at the University of California at
Berkeley and it’s a smart tool so it takes into account the carbon emissions uh that is produced in your own State uh for your electricity and uh the next one please yes this is the household uh carbon tractor carbon tracker um you can enter how many people live in your
Household what’s your annual household income and then it bases uh your footprint of how you answer the following questions on your housing and your transportation and food and procurement so I invite you to play around with these tools um they can be very educational and next slide please Iowa has two
Programs to celebrate congregations that have achieved success in reducing their impact on the environment the certification program recognized congregations that have reduced their emissions by making permanent changes to their facilities to save energy reductions of 10% or more qualify and we award certifications for reductions up to 100% And this is Vine congregational
United Church of Christ in Lincoln Nebraska they are certified as a cool congregation at the 10% carbon reduction level for their work to increase the Energy Efficiency of their building that cut their carbon emissions by 10% Vines sponsored Scout Troop number eight was concerned about climate change and they
Knew that the energy bills were a concern for the church so they decided they wanted to help the church become more energy efficient and so they worked out a plan over $110,000 was spent for a new furnace and light Replacements and other infrastructure and with over $33,000 in
Cost savings per year the project completed a complete return on investment with only a few years and they continue to save every year this project has resulted in Vine preventing 30 tons of carbon emissions annually Ren you want to put the link to their store in the chat it’s also a really
Inspirational story about how to get started and then um the next slide please is Covenant this is Tom’s Church Covenant Christian Church in De Moine Iowa is certified as a cool congregation at the 10% level also Covenant is a small Church sharing their building with many other groups and they have still
Managed to make many small changes to their energy use that has saved over five tons of carbon emissions annually big round of applause here for Tom that is not easy so Ren will also put the link in the chat to their story too oh and Tom I wanted to tell you you
Know if your congregation has made further improvements you can come back and up your level of certification now we offer a really snazzy window cling that we mail out to people to put in the window of your your congregational building so you can brag to everybody who comes in your door were
A cool congregation yeah um next slide I was going to show you is this one the cool congregations challenge now this is an annual contest so it’s different than certification uh this Awards cash prizes to congregations working to become sustainable leaders in their Community we called the cool congregations
Challenge this is the contest that good sheeper won an award in there’s um six categories in this contest and the winners were just announced last week so I encourage you to read their stories on the cool congregation’s uh website to get inspired to make changes at your congregation together with the 125
Entries uh in the 2024 contest um together they are all preventing over 500 tons of carbon emissions annually and the deadline to apply every year is December 15th $1,000 goes to the top winner and $500 to each of three runners up in each category and now on to uh the next slide
Information about Federal funding the inflation reduction Act is the greatest investment in climate care Provisions in United States history this legislation put the nation on the path to cut emissions by 44% by 2030 it includes incent incentives for solar wind geothermal EVS electric vehicles and much more for the first time nonprofit
Organizations such as congregations and houses of worship qualify for federal funding to make these energy upgrades it’s equal to a discount of 30% to even 60% or more for qualifying projects next slide IPL has been hosting a series of webinars with our partner ing religious organizations featuring experts in the
Field on these Ira Provisions to help congregations get connected with these funds for their projects the solar financing for congregations webinar last summer featured a nonprofit solar financing company revolve that offers a way to put up solar panels with no upfront costs I would definitely check with uh Irene though first for Iowa
Alternatives and Iowa resources to do this and an excellent overview of the IRA Provisions with the Department of energy was the topic of another webinar and um the third one I wanted to tell you about was called holy heat pumps just because I like the title holy heat pumps and
Heat pumps are an important way to heat and cool your buildings that will help you get to zero emissions combined with uh renewable energy from solar you saw the two kinds of heat pumps um in the Good Shepard video video the airto a heat pumps which are outside the
Building and the ground Source heat pump we really couldn’t see it was under the ground so they have both types so if you’re curious about um those kinds of heat pumps I would definitely uh email Jim Fritz and and set up a time to talk with him and find
Out more about how that’s working out for their congregation and I wanted to tell you that the links to all of these recorded webinars are on on ipl’s federal funding uh Resource page and ran if you could put the link um in the chat uh to the federal funding for
Congregations page that would be awesome thank you there it is and let’s go to the next Slide the new solar Resource page includes information on how to finance your solar how to find a solar installer uh and also testimonial videos of congregations that have already gone
Solar and um thank you you already put that in the chat for we and you’re on the game and I wanted to tell you um that the I think we’re on the next slide now let’s see yes I just did that one okay let’s
Go to the next one I wanted to tell you that um the IRS portal is now open open it just opened the beginning of last month uh to register your projects such as solar backup battery or geothermal and get the ID number you need to file
For the incentive you can find the link on ipl’s solar resource resource page in the paragraph how to get paid and I just wanted to give you just the high level General overview of how you get paid um with this Federal incentive from the inflation reduction ACT first you
Put your project in service your solar your backup battery your geothermal and after it get begins to produce or provide energy then you register with the IRS to get a number for your project and during this registration process a congregation must provide information about the congregation its solar project and the
Credits it wants to receive so you register through the this online portal at the IRS and there’s an instructional video on the portal page and also they have specific advice on when to register your project in relation to when it went live and the next step which is to file
A 990 with the IRS at the appropriate time so be sure you read that page before you start the registration process and payments from the IRS will not be made until after the solar or battery storage or geothermal is put into Service as they say and the project
Information is included in the tax return the 990 in the year after the device starts to operate so if we could go to the next slide I just wanted to tell you what else is on that congregational solar page which is useful if you’re thinking about putting up solar at your congregation
We’ve got a map and a directory of 1300 congregations around the country that have solar and I went and counted the other day there are 16 Iowa congregations with solar listed on that map so um you if you’re curious about Sol you want to talk to somebody who’s
Already got it well you know about Jim Fritz in Dora now but also consider contacting the other 16 congregations or other 15 congregations in Iowa with solar if they’re near you or you want to go visit them but just you know if you want to find out what other people have
Done give them a call you can get their name and just Google them um and if you know of any others any other congregations in Iowa with solar that are not on that map or that list please let me know and uh I’d like to contact them and get them listed
Because I think this is really handy knowing who to talk to in your area that’s already done something so all of those resources that I talked about can be found most of them on the Cool congregation’s website the IPL Federal resources is on the main IPL web
Page and ren will be sending you these links that she put in the chat in a follow-up email so that you can look at them later so in closing for myself I’m just going to say together taking practical steps to reduce our energy use and carbon footprint we can care for our
Sacred Earth for the sake of future generations and um you can reach me at programs with an S at Interfaith powerand light.org and I’ll turn it over to you now Ren amazing thank you so much Sarah all right it’s now time for us to move into our Q&A portion of the webinar if
You have a question please drop it in the chat or feel free to come off mute if you’d like uh I have a question um and it’s directed for Sarah Sarah is St Luke’s in Cedar Falls still working uh on cool congregation type material I know that you said you were working with
Them but I’m assuming that’s how the Prairie got there and I’m interested in that because I’m trying to talk to the Iowa Episcopal Bishop about working this is through for a new generation oh that’s very exciting that you are interested in Prairie plantings around congregational buildings that’s really neat that you
Saw good Shepherds going to do that in their video and um I know that the reason that St Luke Cedar Falls had the Prairie around their congregation is because Iowa’s Fair foremost expert in prayer restoration was a member of that church that’s how that happened uh Daryl
Smith is his name and it’s been years since I’ve been back there but um Daryl Smith Cedar Falls Iowa sorry I don’t have his contact information that’s all right I’ll I’ll call I’ll call Elizabeth Papa well and get a hold um and my second question was we are looking at
Having to repl I’m in mustine now um and we are looking at having to replace our Sanctuary Um furnaces which are not high efficient they’re 30 years old and so we started this process we have been a um advised against heat pumps we don’t have the the room for geothermal at all we have a very very small campus with no way to expand or landlocked
Um and yes Irene they sure do that’s very very cool um but I I’m assuming that we are talking geothermal for the decor congregation because that’s further north than it looked like they had a large footprint oh they’ve got both they have geothermal and then they put their geothermal in several years
Ago and now they have airs Source heat pump and they uh love it they don’t they took out all their gas they keep plenty warm with just their geothermal and their air source heat pumps you should definitely give Jim Fritz a call read his story and give them a call um I will
Do that yeah and they had trouble finding I mean the they they were so creative in the way they installed their air source heat pump so that they didn’t have like the original handy dandy duck works a furnace under the ground to work with so um they’ve got lots of good
Ideas on how to make ear Source heat pumps work and I guess the nice the nice piece about this is that we’re about to the end of the season so that means that we have some time to really think about this in a positive way so um that’s really really helpful and then
All of the resources and this webinar will be available to us after the meeting run yep I will be sending out a follow-up email with everyone who registered for the webinar with all of the links and resources and I see Ken just uh gave you another plug for air source heat pumps
In the chat air source heat pumps should save you money while reducing emissions at the same same time and they are good for air conditioning also not just heating they sure are they sure are thank you very much I appreciate it yeah yeah you’re welcome good luck with that
Um if you insd to install them come back later and get certified as a cool Congregation yeah we did have a question in the chat about information regarding composting I know in my research I think I did see some congregations I don’t know if any in Iowa necessarily but some who have more extensive composting programs Sarah I don’t know if you would
Want to talk about that a little bit yeah there’s a church in West wi whose name I can’t remember um Tim Goldman is the lead Gardener there they have this incredible huge Garden do you know about him or it their composting is amazing so he would be a great person to
Get in touch with dang I wish I could remember the name of his congregation it might have been an Episcopal Church in West De Moine I can do some digging on that and follow up with um okay that’d be great if it’s on one of those archived pages
Of yours because I wrote a story about them so um but yeah the composing is great to go with a congregational Garden because then you can put your Church kitchen compost in it too so it reduced your reduce your um you know your your carbon emissions from your kitchen waste as
Well I was saying Timothy that’s it yes oh they have a greenhouse now oh that’s fantastic yeah they were doing some wonderful work there trying to measure the carbon emissions uh that they were sequestering in their huge uh Garden they were working with Iowa State it’s kind of
Neat that’s amazing thank you so much this is Paul from uh Irish City I thought I just add that our congregation Gloria day has has started a kind of a experimental compul in program the city of Iowa City does do a even a curb side composting program and so we’ve
Collected um lots of coffee grounds and filters if they have a PO lock or other things we have a composted b as well and we simply put that when somebody’s uh deeply composting uh Bin that was picked up in we and we found that the the amount of
Garbage that we assembling to the landres is greatly it’s not a difficult thing to do if your city or or municipality has that kind ofab that’s really cool that Iowa city has curbside compost pickup that’s very forward thinking are there any other questions I have another comment for
Congregations on this call that might be interested in reducing uh your carbon emissions by you know reducing your use of fossil fuels to heat and cool and power your building um many of the utilities in Iowa like mid am have this goal to um provide their customers with all
Renewable energy like what what’s mid American’s goal is it by 2050 or is it sooner because you all in Iowa are leading the nation aren’t you in the amount of electricity you get from Renewables oh 2049 is the the goal so you know thinking long term sure be
Great to get to zero emissions by 2030 but that might be a little hard but if you get yourself all electric and your electricity provided by your utility provider is going to be 100% Green from Renewables then you’re putting yourself in a really good position um to be zero
Emissions without having to put the solar up on your property so just go all electric by putting in your air source heat pumps or your geothermal heat pumps um you’re you’re already getting yourself in line to being um 100% zero emissions by the time your utility provided electricity is all
Green does that make sense we have been told that mid americ is uh now I believe providing us 85% renewable energy electricity so even though we have solar power solar panels on our on our roof uh we recognize that in the long run our electric bills are really coming out uh
Significantly clean because of the renewal energyy yeah of course putting solar on your building you wouldn’t have to pay for any of that electricity once you’ve paid off your solar but you’re in a good position there in Iowa last call for any questions in the chat or otherwise all
Righty well with that we’ll move into our closing reflection for the evening so leading us in our closing reflection is Ken Winston executive director of Nebraska IPL I’ll pass it to you Ken thank you to Ren and Irene for inviting Nebraska IPL to participate in this event this evening and thanks to
Sarah for all the information that she shared and thanks for the inspiring stories about co- congregations in action and thanks to everybody for joining us this evening I just want to briefly talk about Nebraska Interfaith power and lights involvements involvement in cool congregations we’ve had several national award winners and I
Just I want to do this partly to brag but also uh to just encourage other folks to get involved because it’s one of these things where we’ve got several winners and I heard about winners from Iowa tonight and just uh to encourage folks to get involved in the co
Congregations program um first of all the Unitarian Church of Lincoln was an energy saer winner in the National cool congregations challenge in 2014 Alders gate United Methodist Church of Lincoln was a sacred grounds winner in 2019 Aldersgate was also a 20% uh certified cool congregation in 2022 first Plymouth Church in Lincoln
Was a community inspiration runner up in 2022 St Paul United Methodist Church in Lincoln was a sacred grounds runner up in 2022 Beth Bethany Christian Church in Lincoln was a 10% certified winner in 2023 and Bine Congregational Church which Sarah mentioned this evening and it is a great story and they’re really
Excited about it um they’re a 10% certified church this year so and I wanted to mention even though all the churches were are located in Lincoln which is our Capital City we’ve had applicants from all across the state and and uh and I think it’s a way of uh encouraging and working with
Congregations to participate in uh activities that care for the Earth and reduce their carbon footprint so at this point I’d like to end with a little reflection I appreciate the reflection the leape reflection that Ren provide began with um uh but I’d like to kind of
End in in a similar vein um and for the closing reflection I’d like to suggest that as we go forth May our actions be harmonious with the messages we’ve heard this and shared this evening May these messages help to heal Inspire and connect us with the Earth and other
Humans may we be blessed by the spirit of love that creates and sustains us may we live with an attitude of gratitude for give to give thanks for all about counties we have have today for life and love for air and water land and Sky all the things that nurture and provide for
Us let us recognize the P privileges that Ben benefit many of us and the injustices that have been and continue to be perpetrated in the name of that privilege let us continually recognize that we are on ground that was taken from in indigenous people often by violence and in violation of laws and
Treaties let us also honor the indigenous honor indigenous people and all people who have been enslaved and oppressed as well as their contributions to our work let us also honor the indigenous understanding of the sacredness of all beings and everything that sustains life in conclusion let us
Join our voices to create the strength provided by Spirit faith hope and love that are needed to address the climate crisis blessings to everyone have a good evening and that brings us to the end of our webinar thank you so much everybody for spending your evening with us we hope
You learned lots and feel inspired to take climate action with your house of worship and in your communities thanks everybody