Press Releases04 Mar 09

RCB's Environmentally Friendly Culture at Church House, Dublin

RCB Action on the Environment

Taking responsibility for the environment is increasingly understood as both an individual responsibility and a corporate duty. Buzz words and phrases like 'sustainability', 'carbon footprint' and 'reduce, re-use, recycle' have now come into common usage, and for good reason. Environmental concern has also been a focus of the Church’s Church in Society Committee in its establishment of its Ecological and Environmental Panel.

The Representative Church Body (RCB) at its headquarters at Church House in Rathmines, Dublin, has been increasing awareness of these issues and has over time taken a number of significant steps to act responsibly and reduce its environmental impact.

Heather Jestin, Office Services Co-ordinator, says, 'We’ve been very mindful of the need to reduce our impact on the environment and we wanted to show that the Church is acting well on this matter – to set an example even.'

Heather, who has set many of these initiatives in train, expands by saying, 'We’ve acted in a systematic way to make significant improvements, although we’re not complacent – we’re trying to build up momentum and make further progress wherever we can.'

Heather gives examples of some of the initiatives which the RCB has taken:

• Light bulbs have been replaced with energy-efficient, low wattage units and motion detector lighting in common areas of the building has been installed.

• All our waste paper is recycled, and, where necessary, we have it shredded to ensure that this recycling policy can be universal.

• We've been registered participants in the Dublin Bus/Irish Rail/Luas and Bus Eireann tax saver schemes for some time, and we're actively encouraging staff to take up on this to lessen car usage where it’s possible.

• We have introduced mains-filtered and cooled water in Church House to replace delivered bottled water, and this also will enable us to phase out the provision of bottled water for meetings.

• We use Fairtrade tea and coffee in our Dining Room.

• We've established teleconferencing facilities in Church House, Dublin, and also installed kit in diocesan offices in Armagh, Belfast and Cork. This increasingly will enable people to join in committee meetings remotely, both saving time and reducing people’s 'carbon footprints'. For small meetings, people can also join meetings from their homes across Ireland – participants just dial in. We are also actively investigating video conferencing facilities.

• My colleagues on the IT side were way ahead of the field when the RCB moved to virtualised server technology two years ago. We were the first client of Ireland's largest independent IT company to take this route, which not only reduces the number of required servers, thereby generating savings in space, power and cooling requirements, but also improves substantially the technological reliability of the system.

• All our computers and screens comply with the internationally recognised Energy Star rating standard.

• We recycle our old technology hardware with a WEEE (European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive)-compliant organisation.

Heather concludes by saying, 'Thinking ecologically about our day-to-day business at Church House is something of a shift of mindset but even taking small steps can make real and positive environmental differences – not to mention some cost savings at the same time, which can be no bad thing. We're committed to developing and sustaining an environmentally friendly culture.'

ENDS

Photo above: Heather Jestin, next to a tree at Church House, Dublin planted in 2008 by Eco-Congregation Ireland