Aligning with the celebration of Earth Day 2022, St. John’s Lutheran Church in Stamford, CT was named a “Gold Star” Cool Congregation by Interfaith Power & Light https://www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/about/ for its multi-year installations of solar power, LED lighting, and energy efficient power.
The following link provides a summary of the projects and outcomes resulting in significant energy savings, carbon footprint reductions and enabling expansion of community outreach and growth. https://www.coolcongregations.org/st-johns-lutheran-church/ We are seeing net annual financial benefits of over $70,000 on our total investments of ~$425,000 that began a decade ago.
We hope efforts like these inspire other congregations and neighbors to take a holistic view of their properties – how to save both energy and to improve utilization, while being good environmental stewards and models for the community. Pastor Duane Pederson notes: “it was a long-term effort over several years of education and communications within the congregation that brought many parties and committees together, all having a voice on the process and deployments.”