Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Energy Benchmarking Program: Project Completed
“You can’t change what you don’t measure.” – Understanding your energy use is the first step in reducing it.
Why Benchmark?
- Supports stewardship of environmental and financial resources.
- Allows you to target carbon consumption (buildings account for about 42% of a typical faith community’s carbon footprint).
- Saves time and money, allowing you to target lowest hanging fruit.
- Assists future reporting requirements.
Launched in 2017 and completed in 2020, Faith & the Common Good’s Energy Benchmarking Program helped over 100 faith communities from across the GTHA take their first steps towards practical and economical climate action by measuring and reporting on their annual energy consumption. Each participating faith community received an annual energy report, that by 2020, contained 5 years of data for both electricity and natural gas usage. Each report contained total energy consumed, greenhouse gas emission totals, and energy cost totals. Finally, we also provided faith communities with a benchmarking chart, allowing them to compare their overall energy consumption with the other 100+ faith communities in the program.
Key learning outcomes for participants in the program:
-
In Ontario, natural gas consumption (vs. electrical consumption) generally drives a building's greenhouse gas emissions because natural gas produces more emissions per unit of energy than electricity.
- Electricity is the more costly of the two energy sources, making the switch to cleaner electrical appliances (heat pumps, hot water etc.), a more difficult prospect.
- Faith communities understood the importance of reducing energy consumption and impact on the environment. This led to numerous energy-efficient retrofits faith buildings in GTHA, from installing LED lights to retrofitting boilers.
For more about how the GTHA Energy Benchmarking program operated, take a look at some of the previous articles published on Faith & the Common Good’s Blog:
Energy Benchmarking Program: Impact and Sustainability
A Small Place of Worship Completing Big Energy Retrofits
Energy Benchmarking Program for GTHA Faith Communities Concludes
Three Years of Energy Benchmarking: Project Wraps Up
Action Workbook for Congregations: Faith & the Common Good partners with EPA’s ENERGY STAR® program
We would like to thank all of our funders and partners of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Energy Benchmarking Program
Partners
Resources
Ask the Experts: EV Chargers - Q&A Session
Recorded November 2021
Speakers: Steve Hubbard - LightenCo. and Christopher Ralph - The Lion Electric Company
Description: As part of Canada’s mandate to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the Government of Canada has set an ambitious and mandatory target of every new light-duty vehicle and passenger truck being zero-emission by 2035 and is making investments to ensure this happens. One of the key barriers to zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) adoption is the lack of charging stations. With the goal to break down barriers associated with EV adoption, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) is funding EV infrastructure projects through the Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Program (ZEVIP). Hydro Ottawa has been selected as a delivery organization to distribute ZEVIP funding.
Watch and listen to the webinar
Ask the Experts! Part 1 - How to Finance Your Energy Projects
Recorded February 2021
Description: Learn how YOUR faith community can finance energy projects and benefit from the available energy programs offered through EnviroCentre and CoEnergy.
Watch and listen to the webinar
GSS Ottawa Webinar: Hope for the Future
Recorded December 2020
Description: What is being done by communities to be more sustainable? How does using clean/renewable energy aligns with faith community missions of environmental stewardship?
Find out the questions to these and what next steps you can take in this webinar hosted by GSS Ottawa.
Watch and listen to the webinar
GSS Ottawa COVID 19 and It's impact on Building Performance
Recorded October 2020
Description: Why our Energy Benchmarking Program is so useful for Faith Communities Now more than ever? Looking at the impact of COVID-19 on building energy efficiency and why we need programs like the Energy Benchmarking program more than ever.
Watch and listen to the webinar
Energy Star® Action Workbook for Congregations
ENERGY STAR® and FCG have partnered up to release an Action Workbook for Congregations. This workbook is intended to serve as a planning guide for clergy, staff, and laypersons who want to increase the energy and water efficiency of their facilities by implementing realistic and cost-effective improvement projects.
“It’s essentially a one-stop-shop to help congregations plan and achieve their energy efficiency objectives from start to finish,” says David Patterson, FCG Energy Coordinator. “This workbook is a useful tool for all levels of expertise, and all project sizes and complexity as it covers the major components of any efficiency project. The workbook itself was developed by the EPA, an incredibly large and well-funded arm of the US government, and contains all of their knowledge, research, and best practices on energy efficiency for places of faith.”
Download PDF (3.7 MB)
How to Access your Faith Building Data Webinar
Recorded April 16, 2020
How to access you Faith Building Data
View 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 [email protected].
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
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.
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 [email protected] 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
New in 2018! Our energy benchmarking team has created a series of graphics to help your faith community reduce energy and facilitate recycling efforts.
Each item shown here is available in both pdf format for printing and high resolution jpg.
If you are downloading resources for your faith community, we would appreciate you registering your faith community as part of our network by signing up your faith community.
Download Resources
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
