Reaching net zero – a prominent church inspired to take action
St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden is just one church that found both inspiration, help and information from a Demonstrator Church.
St Paul’s is known as the Actors’ Church, situated in the hustle and bustle of Covent Garden, with the Theatre Royal and Royal Opera House within its parish. Famous names of the stage and screen are memorialised here, including Richard Beckinsale and Diana Rigg. But the most famous of all is the church cat, Eliza.
More than 700 events are held at the church every year, and to celebrate 400 years of delighting the community, there are plans to make the building more accessible, usable, and environmentally friendly. The church has made reducing its carbon emissions a priority, having produced 41 tonnes of CO2 in 2024.
How will St Paul’s do this? The answer has come from another city centre church, St Peter Mancroft in Norwich. Both churches are historic – which brings its own set of challenges – and both lie in the heart of an urban environment. To top it off, both churches use their space for creative arts as well as worship.
The Inspiration
St Peter Mancroft is one of the first Demonstrator Churches. The £5.2m Demonstrator Churches project from the Church of England’s Net Zero Programme aims to help up to 114 churches in 2025 on their journey to net zero, with up to 84 churches receiving funding to help identify the right net zero solution for their setting, and up to 65 churches receiving funding to install their chosen solutions.
After a church has found the right net zero solution, capital grants will pay for items such as solar panels, heat pumps, insulation, secondary glazing, LED lighting and infrared heating systems to reduce not only their dependency on fossil fuels but lower their contribution to the climate crisis.
St Peter’s followed a similar path to St Paul’s, having initially identified that they needed to change the lighting to low energy LED lights for the orchestras that performed there. Then the gas boiler failed, and it was time to look for alternatives, which led them to look at air source heat pumps; and then the roof needed replacing so why not install solar panels at the same time?
The Next Steps
St Paul’s is keen to make sure its plans line up with the Church of England’s wider goal of reaching net zero by 2030, without altering the building’s beautiful Grade I listed features. In 2022, the church appointed an Eco Church Champion, and by 2023 it had already achieved a Bronze Eco Church award for the positive steps it had taken.
There is an obvious contender for next steps - the oil-fired heating system. In 2022, it used around 8,000 litres of oil, costing the church roughly £9,000.
The church has been inspired by the air source heat pumps seen in the 15th century boiler room at St Peter’s, just the thing to solve the heating problem.
The team is now in the early stages of seeking advice to see if a heat pump is the best solution for their church building.
For a busy church, there’s an obvious advantage in the proposed heating system. Not only will it help the church reduce its carbon footprint by 87%, but it will be constantly warm –a big selling point for the church cat, Eliza.
Find out more about the Trust’s funding towards the Church of England’s Demonstrator Church’s Project: Net Zero by 2030: funding to support the Church of England’s climate target