BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON HISTORIC CHURCHES 31st ANNUAL EDITION 41 DECARBONISING CHURCHES Adele Walker CHURCHES ARE among the most iconic buildings in the landscape – places of calm and beauty at the heart of local communities and welcoming visitors passing through. But their future is not guaranteed. As heritage organisations around the world are discovering, the biggest threat to the fabric of these historic buildings is climate change. Helping them be more resilient to the effects of unpredictable and more extreme weather conditions is a high priority. Acknowledging its part in responding to the climate crisis, the Church of England has embarked on an ambitious ‘Net Zero Carbon by 2030’ campaign. It aims to reduce the carbon emitted from over 16,000 of its churches and thousands of associated buildings by 2030, reducing their energy use while keeping worshippers and colleagues warm. The Church wants its buildings to set a new precedent for other heritage organisations to follow – knowing that 2030 marks a point on the journey, not a destination. Gloucester-based sustainability charity Severn Wye Energy Agency has been appointed by the Church of England to devise energy efficiency plans for some of its highest carbon emitters in the dioceses of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester. But how do you decarbonise a church? INEFFICIENCY BUILT IN If you were to design a building to be as energy inefficient as possible, you might well end up with something like a church. Uninsulated, single-glazed, often with lofty ceilings and only intermittently populated – it’s fair to say they were not built with comfort in mind. Whether you spend time in these buildings to attend services, to admire their architectural grandeur, or learn their stories, it’s unlikely you stop to question their carbon footprint. If you do think about it, you might well conclude that most churches stand no chance of getting anywhere near net zero. Happily, retrofit specialists have the requisite mix of experience and curiosity to see what’s possible and practical. For Severn Wye’s current programme, specialists are The Grade II-listed church of St Philip and St James, Leckhampton, Cheltenham was reordered by architects Ferguson Mann in 2019 to provide flexible accommodation for services and community use, with underfloor heating powered by air-source heat pumps. Modern pod installations in the aisles contain servery, office and meeting room facilities. (Photo: Lisa Whitaker/Severn Wye) Greg Collier-Jones, Severn Wye’s lead retrofit coordinator inspecting the extensive network of pipes servicing the new underfloor heating system at ‘Pip and Jim’s’, Leckhampton (Photo: Lisa Whitaker/Severn Wye) analysing the current energy use of 19 churches and their associated buildings, and recommending achievable actions they can take to move towards the Church of England’s goal. The challenge the Church has set itself is undeniably ambitious, and it won’t be easy, but like all well-thoughtout net zero projects, it starts with minimising energy use. HEATING THE MASSES Our oldest churches were built without any form of heating. The Victorians retrofitted many with central heating systems powered by coal-fired boilers, and built countless new ones using the same technology. Although these systems may have been updated with gas- and oil-fired boilers, most are still heated using fossil fuels. For these typically big, uninsulated, and draughty buildings that means heating can account for 90% of their energy use. Mains gas, LPG, and oil will always emit about the same amount of carbon but electricity, on the other hand, we can do something about. Though currently higher than gas, emissions from electricity are predicted to drop to around a third of current levels as the UK decarbonises the grid. Switch to a heat pump, which can be up to 400% efficient, and net zero starts to look much more achievable.
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