YOU TOO CAN MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE
at Your House-Of-Worship

Houses-of-Worship are among the absolute worst sources of waste and inefficiency imaginable. But there is hope. Read these stories of houses-of-worship that made huge strides in reducing energy use and offsetting remaining use and prompting environmental responsibility in their community.

Charles Street AME Church, Roxbury

On December 5, 2009 congregation members, MIP&L volunteers, and professionals from Next Step Living interior "storm" windows, and insulated walls and the basement door. They installed CFLs, lowered water use via faucet aerators and lo-flow showerheads, and adjusted the hot water temperature to "just right" to lower cost of gas to heat the water.

St. James, Cambridge, MASS In Needham, lots of congregations are "getting it"!!!!

Houses-Of-Worship are being greened. And the members are taking it to heart and making it happen in their homes.

Read about their efforts:

Temple Beth Shalom's switch to high-efficiency boilers is resulting in about $3,500 reduction in heating cost.

The Congregational Church of Needham is projecting a 15% saving on the electric bill just from the "low-hanging" fruit, the installation of CFL light bulbs.

And consider First Parish (UU), which did a huge amount of work on its building. New heating, major reconstruction, lots and lots of insulation, and high-efficiency boiler and domestic hot water is bringing costs down as much as 50%, and that with a building that is 25% bigger and better!!!

And the community — as well as the HOWs — are being helped by the Green Needham Collaborative. Its 10% Energy Challenge encourages households to sign up to reduce their household energy consumption by at least 10%. Click here to learn more about the collaborative.

Boston Synagogue

Improvements of heating and cooling equipment resulting in 27% in costs even though degree days were up nearly 5%. CO2 emissions were down 20%.

Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church, Cambridge

In-floor radiant heating puts heat where the people are, with their feet on the floor. To make things better, the congregation upgraded to high-efficiency boilers, with a 40% drop in cost for heating!

Cambridge is Green trail-blazing! You can see MIP&L's contribution (and the wonderful new boiler room at St. James, Cambridge) on the clip from the recently-aired PBS NOW program.