Greening your church building project
‘How can church building projects be more sustainable and low carbon?’ was the question participants explored together in the recent A Rocha Eco Church kōrero on 24 March 2022. Participants from around the motu who are interested or involved in church building projects met together online to discuss experiences and options. The meeting was hosted by Amy Ross, Community Coordinator for Eco Church in the Wellington region and A Rocha | Eco Church National Administrator, Iris Lee. Within Eco Church, our aim is to empower members of the network to actively participate in advocating for low carbon, sustainable choices right throughout the building project cycle.
Presenter Caitlyn Lee is one of the kaihāpai / eco church representatives in her congregation at St. Michael’s Anglican Church, Kelburn. As an architectural graduate working in the sustainable building industry, she also has experience and training in materials research. Caitlyn is very well-placed to provide guidelines and advice for churches who want to design greener buildings for worship and gathering – especially on the toxicity and carbon impact of materials used. Caitlyn is also interested in co-design (collaborative design), where end users have a say in the design of their buildings. The brick portion of Caitlyn’s church, St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Kelburn, is an earthquake risk and her church is currently going through the co-design process for their new build project.
Caitlyn discussed the following key ideas for building and retrofitting church buildings sustainably:
Adaptive reuse
Basic passive design principles and energy management
Treating water as a precious resource
Low carbon impact and non-toxic materials
She discussed briefly topics such as building orientation, thermal mass, insulation, ventilation, solar hot water, photovoltaic (solar) panels, toxicity, carbon calculation and offsetting, living buildings and more. Learning about innovative ways to collect and conserve water through rainwater harvesting systems was especially intriguing, as was the concept ‘whole building, whole of life’. This phrase refers to the cradle to grave lifecycle stages that belong to all materials in the building. Those involved in church building projects were encouraged to be familiar with these terms when talking with an architect, and to consider the stages from raw material, through use in the building, to end of life and beyond – to recycling. FSC timber comes particularly recommended as a sustainable material, as does re-use of any old materials from existing buildings. Several participants mentioned that their church rebuild emerged due to the need to earthquake-proof the church. It will be interesting to consider how conditions such as this impact on the choice of materials.
Te Korōria
Geoffrey Lee, the project manager for Karori Anglican’s (St Mary’s Anglican Church) new build project – Te Korōria - was the second main presenter. Karioi Anglican’s old parish hall was earthquake-prone so a brand new community-facing building focused on outreach was designed and includes features such as a café, counselling space and parish offices. This is a 4-5 million dollar project. Geoffrey helpfully explained the ‘project cycle view of the world’, detailing stages from feasibility, design, consents, tender, construction, transitions through to finally, operations.
One of the key tensions that emerged was the challenge of keeping to budget while still trying to incorporate low carbon, sustainable choices. Some architectural projects, such as the gold standard ‘living buildings’, can be very expensive and beyond the reach of ordinary congregations. Sometimes special grants supporting sustainable design may be applied for from local councils – so churches should also consider grant support to help fundraise for sustainable features – especially for features that can feed back into the community.
For Karori Anglican Church, the early stages of their building project happened before they consciously declared themselves an eco church. Sustainability was therefore not a key factor early on in the project. So while some sustainable features did make it into the conceptual design phase, because it was not prioritised specifically from the start, some features were dropped later due to costs. During the tender process, again sustainability was not a key selection factor when choosing the contractor. If this had been at the forefront, then there would have been more engagement over sustainability throughout, especially for the construction process.
Geoffrey’s takeaway was that unless sustainability is included early on at the feasibility stage – it will get pushed out. This will be especially so when it comes to costing. Sustainability needs to be designed in from the start, so knowing what to ask or prioritise during the design phase is important.
Clearing the building site
Work-in-progress for Te Korōria
Another relevant observation was that during the consents stage, building projects have to align with local council’s priorities too, including environmental priorities – so this may influence and impact on the final design. One key issue for Te Korōria has been how to deal with the old building, including some asbestos. They have focused on reuse of material where possible, careful waste management, and conscious selection of materials. This is currently where the church is at in the building process.
Looking ahead, the transition phase when the church begins to move into and use the new building will present opportunities to create new processes that promote sustainability, for example, processes that will minimise waste and encourage recycling – many choices can be made in this space.
During the discussion time, another topic discussed was the solar panel project of Chartwell Cooperating Church in Hamilton. Warwick Silvester has been involved in this, and after talking to solar providers has put together a quote for 40 solar panels, which has been approved by the church community. Chartwell plans to offer any supplier advertising space, to demonstrate their commitment to being a sustainable community. The parish also runs a community garden, monthly repair café and undertakes energy-saving measures. They have raised $10,000 already for the solar project as parishioners have donated specifically towards this cause, and they are budgeting that the solar project will costs about $40,000 all up.
The session ended by highlighting some case studies of green church buildings, such as St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Lincoln. You can learn about their wooden design and some choices they made to achieve green star rating at the following links:
Caitlyn may be contacted via email if you have specific questions relating to low carbon / low toxicity building materials and design: caitlyn.lee1@gmail.com
Photos and slides credit: Geoffrey Lee