We were delighted to hear that Jean Carletta won the Green Champion Award as part of the Church Times’ Green Church Awards scheme – what a worthy winner!
Jean is one of our own – she first started thinking about energy efficiency in churches as a member of the Property Committee at Christ Church Morningside in Edinburgh, and designed HeatHack, the programme we are using for our Net Zero Workshops. HeatHack was developed with funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious programme and the help of volunteer engineers from around the country. It has been run by at least 40 groups, some of whom are already undertaking major, funded retrofits as a result.
The workshops are a set of sessions based on games and other activities that churches and community groups can use to think about what their community needs from their buildings and what changes they need to make as their response to the climate emergency. You can find out more about how to run these workshops in your church here.
St Mary’s Dalkeith, the first one of our churches to complete their sessions, found they saved 19% of their fuel through a cheap and simple change to their heating controls. You can read about St Mary’s Dalkeith and other churches that have used HeatHack on our Stories page.
Over the autumn, St John’s Aberdeen and St Mary’s Pro Cathedral, Aberdeen have been running HeatHack. Rev Godwin Chimara form St John’s Aberdeen said the HeatHack workshops were very beneficial and would guide their group to prioritise actions and recommendations. He went on to say that the temperature data were insightful in understanding the heating profile of their church buildings.
Holy Trinity Stirling also found the workshops fostered a renewed enthusiasm to encourage more community use of their buildings. Rev Ian Boa said the workshops have enabled everyone from Holy Trinity to look at their church with fresh eyes.
This year, Jean and the rest of the team behind HeatHack have been working with four of our listed churches in Glasgow specifically to check whether their heating controls are wasting heat. Improving heating controls can both reduce carbon emissions and energy bills. Jean is also working on how to scale up HeatHack’s activities so that these useful workshops reach more organisations and community groups.
We wish Jean all the best in her continued work and would like to take this opportunity to thank her for all she has done in creating and adapting the HeatHack workshops for our Scottish Episcopal Churches.
You can read the article on the Church Times website here: The Church Times Green Church Awards.
Bethany Nelson, Empowerment Coordinator; written in conjunction with Jean Carletta, HeatHack Director
