The Great Switch for Creation

The Great Switch is a movement to encourage and support churches to switch to green energy tariffs, aligned with our net zero mission. This Season of Creation, we’re helping churches reduce their environmental impact and in turn, the overall emissions of the Church of England.
 

As well as switching to a green tariff, it's really important to try to reduce the energy your church uses. There are lots of options to explore including energy efficiency measures, transitioning to electric heating and even solar panels. Find more information about the actions you can take to reduce your church's energy use.

• The most sustainable energy procurement strategy would exclude the use of gas entirely. 
• We recommend focusing investment on reducing energy use and improving building efficiency, which will have a much greater impact on both emissions and energy costs. Find advice for reducing your church's carbon usage.
• However, replacing gas boilers with electric heating is often a complex project that takes time and many churches will continue to use gas (and may prefer to choose green gas tariffs) while they transition to NZC.

• Parish Energy is managed by Parish Buying which uses the bulk buying power of the Church of England to obtain competitive prices for your gas and electricity.
• As the Church of England’s buying service, Parish Energy can help you save time and money which can then be spent on your church’s mission and ministry. Parish Energy offers an electricity tariff which meets our green tariff definition. 
• The Parish Energy gas tariffs do not meet our green tariff definition. Their biomethane tariff comes close, but does not fully qualify because some of the biomethane is produced using purpose-grown crops rather than organic waste materials. 
• Using Parish Energy means you get a dedicated account manager to support you. Additionally, your energy bill data will automatically be uploaded to the Energy Footprint Tool from 2027, ensuring an important job is done for you!
• Contact Parish Buying if you’d like to switch to a green energy tariff.

We recommend that you invest in reducing or decarbonising your energy use before offsetting. Where this isn’t possible, the Church of England will also be undertaking research into offsetting schemes and publishing guidance in 2027.

• If you’re not sure who your energy supplier is or how to access your bills, we’d recommend speaking to your Treasurer, who should have records of these. If this isn’t possible, find out who your energy supplier via Ofgem.
• Moving forward, we’d recommend installing a smart meter. This can give you more control over your energy, by taking automatic, regular meter readings so you can see when your building is using energy. You can even view these graphs on your suppliers’ app.
• Most suppliers fit a smart meter for free for businesses, including churches, and it only takes a couple of hours. Find advice about using a smart meter.

• You can still take part in the Great Switch! To avoid any fees, pledge to switch once your contract comes to an end via our tool – and select 'pledge to switch'.
• We’d recommend making a note of the month your contract comes to an end – we will also send you a reminder via email when it’s time for you to switch.

If you believe you are on a green tariff that is not on the list, its likely that it didn’t meet the green tariff definition. If you’d like to check, you can tell us about your tariff, and our consultants might be able to assess it.

• We worked with an external consultant, Turner & Townsend, to analyse 'green' electricity tariffs, and ‘green’ gas tariffs currently available in the market.
• Suppliers were measured against four key principles. These principles were:
  • Principle 1a (electricity tariffs): What should be included in green electricity tariffs? E.g. sourcing and transparency, technology mix
  • Principle 1b (gas tariffs): what should be included in green gas tariffs? E.g. source of gas, traceability, carbon footprint
  • Principle 2: What environmental goals and sustainable behaviour does the supplier demonstrate? E.g. divestment from fossil fuels, supplier fuel mix, net zero commitments
  • Principle 3: What ethical and charitable behaviour should the supplier demonstrate?
  • Principle 4: How cost competitive is the supplier and what is their customer feedback like?
• Using these principles, the tariffs have then been categorised into five distinct classes: fail, below basic, basic, better, and best. Our infographic gives an overview of those available basic and above. 

• So far, we have analysed 20 suppliers, which collectively account for over 95% of The Church’s current documented energy consumption.
• The remaining suppliers, while relevant, represent a much smaller portion of the market and therefore have a lesser impact on the overall analysis.