Measuring the Carbon Footprint

When we were assessed for our EcoCongregation award the major issue we were asked to address was measuring our carbon footprint. It's something I've nonetheless been putting off because the whole thing seems so complex - on a household basis two different calculators can give widely varying results.

However, Oxford diocese have now made it impossible to resist by engaging with sMeasure to allow all churches in the diocese to use their energy measuring software free for this year as part of a pilot project in the hope that the wider Church of England will be involved in subsequent years. Two weeks ago I finally bit the bullet and set up an account. Unfortunately it is impossible to measure the energy use of the church separately from that of St John's school, although some sort of guestimate is possible based on the proportion of bills we've agreed to pay. This Monday I put in my second readings and discovered that the combined school and church emissions of carbon dioxide for the past week came to just over 2 tonnes. Sobering information.

The same software is available for any domestic household to use for free through iMeasure. It is really quite easy even for a technophobe like me and I can see the urge to get those measurements down could be quite constructive.