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:	Teresa Ierullo	haltonpeel@faithcommongood.org
Hamilton:	Juby Lee	jlee@faithcommongood.org
York:	Harry French	hfrench@windfallcentre.ca
Ottawa:	Charlie Scromeda	greeningsacredspacesottawa@gmail.com

Thank you to our Funders

Energy Benchmarking Events

A Small Place of Worship Completing Big Energy Retrofits

October 23, 2019

Monthly Meeting Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

The Quaker House is an unassuming place, tucked away in a residential neighbourhood, on a quiet street.

Over the years, members of the Quaker House have been actively undertaking a number of energy retrofits. Despite facing similar challenges that are common with places of worship, such as a diminishing congregation and financial constraints, their members completed a number of eco-projects over the last few years.

Longstanding member, Don Woodside, sat down with Juby Lee, project coordinator of the Energy Benchmarking program in Hamilton.

Holy Trinity Thornhill Case Study Webinar

October 23, 2019

View More Blog Posts

Resources

St. Cuthbert's Anglican Church Case Study

St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church, Toronto St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church, Toronto

Mission and Background: St. Cuthbert’s is a caring Christian community that seeks to love God and serve our neighbours. We are located in the heart of Leaside and have been worshipping and serving our community since we were established in 1890 --128 years of bringing faith to life!

Our facilities offer over 19,600 square feet of space that is well maintained, well-appointed and well used by our parishioners, tenants and local groups including Beavers, Cubs, Venturers, Scouts and Girl Guides.

We have made a conscientious effort to reduce waste, promote recycling and composting, improve energy efficiency, eliminate reliance on toxic products and exercise earth-friendly protocols. In 2010 we completed an in-house environmental audit by examining our building operations and best practices. We maintain a documented record of our improvements and initiatives.

Download PDF (230 KB) to learn more about St.Cuthbert's Anglican Church in Toronto and what you can learn from their journey.

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)

Order a hard copy of the DIY Walkthrough Audit Guide
Cost: $25 per copy (includes shipping and handling within Canada)

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