Church walkthroughs in Southern Alberta

At the end of April, Newo’s certified energy auditors, Maroof Ahad and Garnet Borch, completed a whirlwind energy-audit tour of seven Southern Alberta United Churches that are exploring ways to reduce their environmental footprints through the United Church of Canada’s Faithful Footprints program.

Faithful Footprints provides up to $30K towards energy conservation and renewable energy projects to help communities of faith lower their energy bills and live out the UCC’s climate commitments. Newo serves as the program’s Regional Support Centre for Western Canada (Alberta, BC and the Yukon), helping churches navigate the grant and offering a limited number of free walkthrough energy audits to assist congregations in determining what retrofits to prioritize.

Covering about 2,000 kilometres in four days, Maroof and Garnet met with passionate champions from each church and were generously hosted overnight, visiting:

Over the coming weeks, they will be completing tailored reports prioritizing actions for each of the churches, including common recommendations such as:

• Air sealing/weather stripping around doors and windows
• Installing low-flow faucet aerators
• Switching to LED with motion sensors or photocells
• Installing programmable thermostats
• Replacing failing appliances with high-efficiency models
• Installing solar
• Replacing damaged windows and doors

Is your church interested in learning more about the Faithful Footprints program? Connect with regional coordinator Jessica Ryan (jessica@newo.energy) or visit the Faithful Footprints website. Newo will be conducting more audits starting in the fall, so please reach out if you’d like to find out if your church could benefit from one.

Newo is a non-profit social enterprise exploring ways to share abundance (wêyôtan, in Cree) and foster kinship (wahkohtowin). Our services include solar installations, energy audits, and education.