Webinars on getting to net zero carbon

Knowing your ant from your elder

Wednesday 22 May, 12 noon - 1pm

This practical session from Harriet Carty, Caring for God's Acre, will help prepare you for your Love Your Burial Ground Week/Churches Count on Nature event (8-16 June 2024).

Planting your tree in the Communion Forest

Monday 10 June, 12 noon - 1pm

This seminar with Bishop Graham Usher explores how planting is to hope; restoring is to heal; and protecting is to love. Find out more about the global Communion Forest initiative.

Your church - your swifts

Tuesday 11 June, 12 noon - 1pm

Find out more about the swift, which often nest in churches. Edward Mayer offers lots of practical tips and easy to follow advice to helping to protect this wonderful bird.

Ancient yew trees

Wednesday 12 June, 12 noon - 1pm

This talk will provide clarity on Yew biology, best-practice management and dispel myths and misconceptions around these ancient trees. With Chris Knapman and Russell Ball.

Solitary bees

Thursday 13 June, 12 noon - 1pm

Of the 280 bee species that are native to Britain and Ireland, around 250 are ‘solitary’. Brigit Strawbridge will explain the differences between social and solitary bees, and introduce you to some of the diverse and fascinating solitary species you might find in your gardens, local burial grounds or other green spaces.

Blueing the church

Friday 14 June, 12 noon - 1pm

There are 24 dioceses with coastal boundaries totalling 2,663 miles. Through this webinar David Curry will encourage churches to think and talk about our ocean and its inhabitants, their coastal boundaries and enable them to be as cognisant of the importance of ‘blue’ (marine) issues as well as green issues.

Helping schools cut their carbon

A webinar in February 2024 introducing a range of new free resources to help schools reduce carbon emissions and reach net zero carbon. 

Speakers include Robyn Ford, Education Policy Specialist at the Church of England Education Office, Adam Flint from Keep Britain Tidy and Harry Paticas and Deborah Adler from RAFT introducing a new Energy and Self Audit Tool for schools.

Fundraising from environmental grant-makers

Find out where to look for funding from environmental grant funders; how to express the environmental benefits of your project and how to plan your fundraising approach. With speakers Action Planning consultants Andrew Johnson and Sean Tully.

Fundraising from community-led grant makers

This talk with Action Planning consultants Andrew Johnson and Andrew Clark will help you find out where to look for funding for your net zero carbon projects; how to involve your local community to gather input into your plans and how to express the benefits of the project in your applications.

Becoming a net zero carbon church

This webinar will help your church get started on becoming a net zero carbon church. Come along to find out:
* What net zero carbon means?
* What kind of practical change might it require?
* How do you know your start point?
* What resources are out there to help you?
* Plus inspiring examples from churches around the country

Conservation pitfalls and how to avoid them

This webinar covers some of the conservation pitfalls that projects often encounter when trying to make environmental changes to historic buildings. It will also share how to avoid them, as well as questions people can ask themselves at the very beginning of a project which will help get projects on the right track. 

Successfully navigating the faculty system

Are you a representative of a church, DAC staff, archdeacons or architects? This webinar is aimed to help you understand the practicalities of how churches who want to carry out environmentally-minded projects (insulation, heating, solar, EV car charging) can best navigate the faculty system.

How can you ‘get to yes’ by designing the right project and making your case well?

Assessing embodied carbon in retrofit church projects

When considering strategies to reduce emissions in operation, there is a danger that the measures themselves could cause more emissions in the manufacture and installation than they would save in practice - and thus achieves the opposite of what is desired.

This webinar shares the basic information required to understand the subject, and a framework for making decisions which take embodied carbon into account.

What's needed in practice to get to net zero carbon?

Detailed studies of 12 Church of England buildings took place in 2022 as part of The Wayfinders Project. For each building, a Net Zero Carbon Action Plan was created and costed, to set out what action would be needed - in practice - to get to net zero. 

Find out the results of this project which looked at a sample of buildings which we know are relatively high in their energy use: 4 busy churches, 3 secondary schools, 3 primary schools, a diocesan office, and a Theological Education Institution.

Briefings on updated faculty rules

This session will cover changes to the faculty rules, in the light of the Church of England's commitment to achieve net zero carbon by 2030, as agreed by General Synod in 2020.

It will be useful for DAC members and staff teams, Church Energy Advisor Network members, Diocesan Environment Officers, and to individual parishes planning projects.

Choosing the best heating solution for your church

Fins out about heat pumps, electric heating solutions, and more. What are the pros and cons, what is the carbon impact and what is the future of funding? What are the key questions to ask? How do we reduce demand in the first place by improving fabric? How do we make a persuasive case for change?

Energy saving quick wins

Find out where to start if you want to reduce the amount of energy (electricity, gas and oil) that your church uses.  Practical steps like setting boiler/heating controls correctly, DIY draught-proofing, timers, water saving, procurement of energy and energy bills, and basic housekeeping measures.  Simple steps that don’t cost the earth.

The effective management of lighting towards net zero carbon

This webinar covers church lighting - in all forms.  Discover how changes in the use of lighting can impact positively on the goal of becoming net zero carbon.  Whilst LED lighting is now seen as the most efficient and effective light source it is the extent of use and the management of lighting that determines the energy utilisation and the impact on carbon use.

Church solar panels

An introduction to solar PV panel technology, its applications, usage and on-going benefits. It covers the steps that are involved in developing a Solar PV project from assessment, survey, technical and electrical engineering design; council planning and DAC application and approval processes; the introduction of battery storage and information required from churches in order to ensure proposals are as accurate as possible

EV charging points in churches

This webinar from Parish Buying is aimed at any church interested in providing EV charging services either to parishioners or the wider community. It also covers the health and safety of this service.

The basics of heat pumps

Decarbonising heat is key to achieving net zero carbon. One way to achieve this is to install a heat pump, but this is only suitable for churches in certain circumstances.

This workshop will look at the basics of heat pumps (mainly air source and ground source heat pumps). It will discuss their use, where heat pumps work well, and how to make sure their use is optimised.

Eco Church

We have four Eco Church webinars to watch: An introduction and overview of eco church - getting started; Working towards an award and gaining momentum; Working towards net zero carbon with Eco Church and Land.

Learnings from net zero action plans for schools

This webinar is aimed at school business managers, school leaders, school governors and directors of MATs, diocesan buildings officers, diocesan directors of education, diocesan environment officers, and anyone interested in how our schools can work towards Net Zero.

This session includes findings from over 200 school energy audits about the change needed, the savings and the costs and six real world examples of schools with detailed Net Zero Carbon Action Plans.

Climate resilience

Find details of our climate resilience webinars here to help your church and its community prepare for more extreme weather and other climate risks.