Churches can play a part and make meaningful and environmentally sustainable choices when it comes to the products they use and companies they support. This document below provides some guidance to churches as they think about their purchasing policies:

Reduce: Purchasing Principles for Churches

We also collate useful tips from various churches and share them on this page so that we can support each other to be better stewards through our purchasing. If you have any recommendations to share to help with church purchasing, please email us.

DISCLAIMER: The references and information about any commercial products, suppliers, providers and services contained on this website does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by A Rocha Aotearoa NZ or Eco Church NZ. It is your responsibility to verify and investigate them on your own. We provide the information and references as examples of options available and with the hope that they might be useful for your own research.

Batteries

Use reusable batteries to reduce the number of batteries that are put in a landfill. Churches use batteries in many places especially in microphones and remote controls for equipment.

Biscuits

Instead of buying pre-packaged biscuits from supermarkets that often come with the non-recyclable biscuit trays, consider home-baking or ordering biscuits from a bakery or supermarket bakery to reduce packaging.

Cleaning products

Although they are sometimes a little more expensive, environmentally friendly cleaning products are now widely available. In general avoid chlorine-based bleaches, phosphate-based detergents and any cleaners not 100% biodegradable. Use less cleaner and detergent - they all have some impact.

Also consider buying cleaning products in bulk to reduce packaging and save money. Here is an example of a bulk purchasing page of cleaning products from EcoStore.

Coffee

One church recommends coffee beans from La Mai Coffee, sourced from Bright Hope World, the profits from which go towards helping communities who live in extreme poverty (earning less than $1 per day).

Another recommendation is Common Good Coffee. Common Good Coffee exists to support positive change in some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the world. They are the crew behind Addington Coffee Co-op in Christchurch, Crave and Kind Cafes in Auckland, and the Common Ground Coffee pop up in Whanganui.

Disposable Cups

If you have to use disposable cups, consider using Butterfly Cups rather than standard disposable ones. These are home compostable and should not go to the landfill. Reducing the amount of rubbish going to landfills is a great thing because landfills aren't designed to breakdown products. Info about a NZ supplier is here.

Hot Chocolate/Milo

You can replace your Hot Chocolate / Milo mix with Trade Aid Drinking Chocolate which is organic and Fairtrade. This means cocoa producers are paid a fair wage, and workers are not exploited through the growing process. It also comes in home compostable packaging and is $3/kg cheaper – a great saving considering churches use a lot each year.

Kitchen Paper Towels

If you’re using paper towels in your church kitchen - ensure they are at least from recycled paper. But better yet, consider paperless options - search the internet for: cloth paper towels, reusable bamboo wipes, unpaper towel - you will see that there are many options to choose from including DIY instructions to make your own unpaper towels.

Printing / Photocopy Paper

Churches can use printing / photocopy paper made from wheat straw, a byproduct of food manufacture, which typically only uses the wheat grain; rather than the felling of trees!

Paper Hand Towels

The use of paper towels in church toilets is a big discussion item whenever we talk about church waste. The amount of paper waste that is generated by single use paper hand towels is a challenge for churches wanting to reduce their waste. Some suggest moving to hand dryers is better for the environment. But there is no definitive answer as to which is better as it does depend on a lot of variables such as how much use the hand dryer would get, what efficiency it would be, and the electricity source. Here are some interesting reading on the topic:

• https://medium.com/@stanfordmag/paper-or-air-which-method-is-greener-19d81f25ed0c

• https://theconversation.com/the-great-bathroom-debate-paper-towel-or-hand-dryer-51197

• https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-11-07/paper-towels-warm-air-jet-hand-dryers-environment-hygiene/10468580

Another option is to move to cloth towels. This is the option adopted by The Tribe Church in Masterton which is featured in the Story section of this website. Here are some further reading on this topic:

• https://www.treehugger.com/how-avoid-using-paper-towels-4858148

Toilet paper and facial tissues

Use recycled toilet paper, tissues and kitchen rolls. If you can’t get recycled paper options, check that your supplies are Forest Stewardship Council certified – which is the highest level of protection for rare and endangered forests and wildlife of any existing forest certification scheme.