Energy Benchmarking

Find out more about Our Energy Benchmarking Program

Understanding your current energy use is the first step in reducing it. Launched in 2017, our Energy Benchmarking Program is helping faith communities take practical and economical climate action by lowering their energy use and emissions.

“Energy efficiency is the fastest, cheapest, and largest single resource solution for simultaneously saving energy, saving money, and preventing GHG emissions.” – Energy Star Action Workbook for Congregations, US EPA, 2017

Interested? Here's what you need to do to participate:

A) If you have already registered your faith community for our free online network go directly to our Energy Benchmarking Form.

B) If you have not registered, follow the steps below to become one of our benchmarking faith communities.

Register your faith community for our free online network.
Log in to your account (top right corner of our home page).
Return to this page and complete our Energy Benchmarking Form.
After you have electronically submitted the Energy Benchmarking Form, the last step is to complete a local utility company consent form to enable us to access your energy consumption data.
1. Toronto faith communities:
  Complete and e-mail the consent forms from Toronto Hydro and Enbridge Gas to Donna Lang, dlang@faithcommongood.org.
2. Other regions:
  Kindly contact your local animator below for instructions.
Congrats! You're done. Looking forward to working with your faith community to save energy, $, and the planet!

Benchmarking Steps

Why Benchmark?

1. Supports stewardship of environmental and financial resources.
2. Allows you to target carbon consumption (buildings account for about 42% of a typical faith community’s carbon footprint).
3. Saves time and money, allowing you to target lowest hanging fruit.
4. Assists future reporting requirements.

What are you being asked to do?

Make a commitment to save energy
Give us your building information and consent to access your energy data
Work with us over the next 3 years to identify ways to decrease energy consumption

We'll make it easy for you by:

Registering your faith building with Energy Star Portfolio Manager
Inputing your utility data into Portfolio Manager
Facilitating a building audit (if desired)
Providing energy performance reports, energy efficiency tools, funding info and training
Meeting with your building committee and/or Board to answer questions and ensure things run smoothly
Providing an annual performance review

Scroll down for upcoming events, blog posts, and resources.

Contact us

Energy Coordinator:	David Patterson	dpatterson@faithcommongood.org
Toronto ⁄ Project Manager:	Donna Lang	dlang@faithcommongood.org
Halton and Peel:	Stephanie Bush	haltonpeel@faithcommongood.org
Hamilton:	Juby Lee	jlee@faithcommongood.org
York:	Harry French	hfrench@windfallcentre.ca
Ottawa / Project Manager:	Ruth Bankey	rbankey@faithcommongood.org

Thank you to our Funders

Energy Benchmarking Events

Three Years of Energy Benchmarking: Project Wraps Up

May 13, 2020

Faith buildings account for about 42% of a typical faith community’s carbon footprint, according to a Canadian National Inventory Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.* With over 27,000 faith communities in Canada, the faith sector can do a lot to lower emissions, starting from their places of worship. Doing so also encourages congregants to follow suit at home. Energy conservation and efficiency is an obvious way to immediately reduce emissions and make a real impact.

As a start, it is useful to track energy usage, because you can’t change what you don’t measure. Over the last three years, FCG has been supporting faith communities to do just that, through our Energy Benchmarking program for faith groups. Now that the program is drawing to an end, this wrap-up blog offers insights to help your faith group tackle next steps in retrofitting. We will end with tips from one participant of the program.

We share insights from our Building Audit Manager, Stephen Collette. Stephen is a sustainable building consultant, and a heritage professional specializing in faith community buildings. He blogs at http://www.yourhealthyhouse.ca

Hamilton Monthly Meeting Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Hamilton, Ontario Greening Case Study

April 29, 2020

View More Blog Posts

Resources

How to Access your Faith Building Data Webinar

Recorded April 16, 2020

How to access you Faith Building Data

Listen to the webinar (55 minutes)

Learn more about saving energy at your faith-building, by reading our 62-page practical "Do-It-Yourself" Faith Building Energy Audit Guide DIY Walkthrough Guide

For information about How to Access your Data, please contact your David Patterson, by email dpatterson@faithcommongood.org.

York Region Presentation: Chinese Pastoral Council

Climate, Faith and Action: Presentation to Chinese Pastoral Council
Feb 19, 2020

Presenter: Kirthan Sathananthan

Download PDF (1.2 MB)

Energy Benchmarking Case Studies

Our Energy Benchmarking Program

The Energy Benchmarking program:

1. Supports stewardship of environmental and financial resources.
2. It allows you to target carbon consumption (buildings account for about 42% of a typical faith community’s carbon footprint).
3. Saves time and money, allowing you to target the lowest hanging fruit.
4. Assists future reporting requirements.

View our Case Studies of the places we have worked with.

Runnymede United Lighting Case Study Webinar

Recorded November 20th, 2019

Runnymede United Lighting Case Study Webinar: Costs, Savings and Payback Periods from Energy Conservation in your Faith Building.

Watch and listen to the webinar (59 minutes)

Download Don Dewees' PowerPoint presentation

To provide learning and ways to reduce your building footprint, we have created a 62 page Do It Yourself Faith Building Energy Audit Guide.

We would like to thank Enbridge Gas Inc. for providing funding to Faith & the Common Good.

Enbridge Gas Inc. has a more than 170-year history and is Canada's largest natural gas distribution company. Enbridge Gas delivers safe, reliable natural gas in more than 100 communities across Ontario and is a leader in promoting energy efficiency programs.

For information about Enbridge incentives, contact your Enbridge Energy Solutions Consultant, Jeffrey Blunt, at 416-795-8346 or email jeffrey.blunt@enbridge.com to learn more about their programs and incentives or visit enbridgesmartsavings.com/business

DIY Walkthrough Audit

New in 2018! This easy-to-use 62-page guide is intended for decision-makers in faith communities who wish get to know how their buildings work and reduce the amount of energy they use in their buildings.

Energy audits of religious buildings show that 80 to 85 per cent of the energy used in places of worship is for heating and ventilation. Operators of religious buildings can take advantage of that finding to reduce their operating costs by making sure their heating and ventilating equipment is working as efficiently as possible, and by reducing heat loss from their facilities.

This guide discusses low or no-cost measures to give operators of religious buildings a range of options they can apply to reduce their energy bills while adding comfort and attractiveness to their facility. It includes a 14-page DIY energy audit.

Download PDF (3.9 MB)

Presentation on Building Automation Systems

Building Automatic Systems Lunch 'n' Learn Webinar
Jan. 30, 2019

Presenter: Murtaz Abid, C.E.T.

Learn more about controlling the heating, cooling and ventilation in your faith buildings. This subject is somewhat complex, and thus requires specific knowledge and expertise. Murtaza a.k.a Taz, a Certified Engineering Technologist, talks about ways to save energy by controlling your building through technology, whether it be smart programmable thermostats or smart self-sustained Automation Systems, or everything in between.

Download PDF (1.2 MB)

Listen to the audio recording.

Energy Efficiency Tools

Energy Savings Webinar

Recorded November 15, 2017
Saving energy is becoming increasingly important for large buildings, with cap and trade now in Ontario. But did you know that faith buildings account for 42% of all faith community green house gas emissions?

This is why Faith & the Common Good is engaging in an exciting, new benchmarking program. It will allow you to measure and track your energy consumption, and reduce it over time.

Watch and listen to webinar (1 hour, 20 minutes)

Presented by Faith & the Common Good: Greening Sacred Spaces Toronto chapter, with support from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Toronto Hydro, Save ON Energy, and Enbridge Gas.

Climate Change and Energy Benchmarking Webinar

Recorded January 22, 2018
We were delighted to welcome Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, Dr. Dianne Saxe, to the webinar launch of our new Faith Building Energy Benchmarking program. For those of you who attended, we hope that you found Dianne Saxe’s talk inspirational, concerning the moral, physical, and economic urgency of meaningful action on climate change.

Download options include:

Entire webinar
Individual pdf presentations:
- Dianne Saxe presentation — Facing Climate Change
- Faith & the Common Good presentation — Energy Benchmarking
- Toronto Hydro presentation — Energy Saving Programs for your Place of Worship
- Enbridge presentation — Minimizing the Cost Impact of Cap and Trade through Energy Efficiency

Watch and listen to webinar (1 hour, 23 minutes)

Download individual presentations