Caring for the Environment

A caption in hereDiocese of Westminster Annual Report & Accounts 2021

Caring for the Environment

© Diocese of Westminster

THE DIOCESE has committed to do its utmost to become carbon neutral in its parishes and curial buildings by 2030, and has expressed a commitment to work with schools to help them achieve the same goal. The journey is considerable and complicated, and requires active collaboration with a number of internal and external stakeholders. It is anticipated that the initial years will not show a substantial reduction in carbon usage, with most of the reduction expected after 2025.

To achieve these goals, in 2021 the Charity has:

• divested from fossil fuel companies which are not aligned to the Paris Accord commitments;

• calculated the estimate of carbon footprint for curial and parish buildings;

• begun a pilot with a small number of parishes to help them find ways to reduce their carbon footprint;

• been working on transitioning 21 parishes that did not obtain all of their gas and electricity from green sources;*

• conducted detailed audits of 35 schools on energy use and made strong recommendations on how they can reduce their carbon footrpint.

* Eight parishes do not have green-sourced gas and electricity, 12 do not have green-sourced electricity, and one does not have green-sourced gas.

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Diocese of Westminster Annual Report & Accounts 2021

Measuring our Carbon Footprint2019 2020

Location Base: Carbon produced from diocesan consumption of energy sourced from the Grid (In tonnes)

1,857ELECTRIC

1,717

5,234GAS

4,694

7,091

6,411

Market Base: Carbon produced from energy purchased (In tonnes)

760 734

727 716

1,487

• The Location Base measures energy consumption from the Grid, which comes from a variety of sources, and therefore has the carbon intensity of the Grid as a whole, regardless of what is purchased by the diocese.

• The Market Base has a lower carbon intensity, as it measures that which is purchased from chosen suppliers, and is mostly from renewable sources.

• The above figures include assumptions on the properties for which the Diocese of Westminster does

1,450

not have information. In most instances, this is due to the fact that these properties are commercially let and thus the diocese does not have control over purchase and usage of energy.

Of the total property units, 17% are estimated in full and 5% are estimated in part. As the process matures, it is hoped that estimates will be replaced in due course by actual figures.

• The above information only includes parishes that are consolidated in the annual accounts.*

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