Our faith’s Value of Interdependence calls us to environmental stewardship as a moral and spiritual practice: “We honor the interdependent web of all existence. With reverence for the great web of life and with humility, we acknowledge our place in it.”
In response, our Fellowship has taken a number of steps to reduce our utility carbon footprint.
Putting our faith into action required financial and congregational commitment, and our Fellowship and leadership delivered. The resulting improvements represent over $400,000 of investment.
The results have been impressive! As of August 2025, the solar array has delivered over 190 mWh of electricity, saving almost 52 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The cumulative effect of UUFR’s efforts reduced its carbon footprint by 52% between 2018 and 2024.
The climate crisis isn’t driven only by utility greenhouse gas emissions. Organic material in landfills degrades to methane, which is approximately 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. We can minimize our contribution to methane emissions by composting our food waste and other organic waste. Since 2019, UUFR’s composting program has diverted over 36,000 pounds of compostable material from landfills, thereby avoiding 43 metric tons of CO2-eq emissions.
Note: The images on this page were donated by EJMT volunteers and are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
