Sustainability stories - Cotteridge LM

Cotteridge LM

With careful analysis, determination, and a concerted effort, 90% reductions in fossil fuel use are possible! Between 2004 and 2010 Cotteridge Quaker Meeting has reduced its energy use by more than 70%. In addition, we are now generating 20% of our original usage. Thus, by June 2011, our energy usage should be down to c. 10% of our 2004 starting point.

When Cotteridge Quakers started on this road in 2005, we did not know how far we could travel. We stepped forward in faith. We were driven by a concern for our planet and, more prosaically, by a desire to be comfortably warm in meeting.

As we made improvements, our gradually decreasing meter readings were a source of encouragement and strength. Generous gifts of time and money from members of the meeting, as well as growing fuel savings, enabled projects to continue.

Credit: Harriet Martin

In retrospect we can see that it was not so much that we “stepped out on to a road”; rather, we climbed onto a cycle. The cycle wheel went round and round, propelling our projects forward. We repeated time and again the same sequence: problem identification and analysis, Premises Committee suggestions, Business Meeting decisions, fund raising, action, feedback. Members of the meeting who consistently volunteered time and practical skills as well as finance were our energy source. Encouraging graphs emerged which drove the cycle forward again and again with new actions identified, analyzed, agreed, acted on and tracked by electric meter. Our Quaker community was strengthened, energized and cheered time and again.

As we cycled through the years we added another cog in the wheel gearing, external fund raising through awards and grants from trusts and governmental bodies. The evidence or our graphs and the enthusiastic efforts of volunteering Friends began to give a Midas touch to our application forms. Over six years we have spent about £120,000 (c. £40,000 from the Low Carbon Building Phase 2 Fund and the Veolia Environmental Trust, c. £15,000 from assorted Quaker trusts, with the remainder from Area Meeting or local meeting funds).

By Harriet Martin

We’d love to hear the story of you or your meeting too. Just email sunnivat@quaker.org.uk and tell us about it.