17 Dec First Baptist Church — goes Carbon Positive!

Maybe you've driven up Trinity Street from 6th Street one evening and wondered about the large, brown-brick bell tower on the northeast corner of 9th & Trinity. That huge, campus-of-a-building houses First Baptist Church of Austin (FBC), founded 1847. 

FBC's leadership on critical social issues goes back to at least 1963 when it was one of the first churches in the country to make a formal statement in support of desegregation. Earlier this month they took another leap forward by Becoming Carbon Positive. Becoming Carbon, what? …  "Carbon Positive" is a term created by Joep Meijer of ClimateBuddies.org to denote going beyond carbon neutral, or carbon zero, to doing more than your fair share of carbon offsetting on an annual basis. To Become Carbon Positive is to become a great steward of the climate. 

FBC achieved its carbon positivity by

1. Switching to Green Power. Already energy efficient FBC switched to GreenChoice from Austin Energy in August, reducing their annual carbon footprint by hundreds of tons.
2. Getting a Climate Assessment. FBC also got a Climate Assessment from the Faith and Energy Action Team (us, writing this blog), which analyzes every expenditure in a congregation's annual budget, not just energy. 
3. Reviewing the Data. FBC used the info from their Climate Assessment to better understand their remaining carbon footprint. 
4. Offsetting their Remaining Footprint. Once they had their total carbon footprint for 2014, they went carbon offset shopping. 

Thanks to the work of Chris Searles, the group quickly connected to a biodiversity preservation project in the Western Andes with high carbon value. The group's donation to this project helps protect one of the world's most biologically rich regions, save a critically endangered species from extinction, prevent deforestation, and preserve one of our planet's prime carbon sequestration assets. This preserve, "The Andes Mountain Orchid Preserve" is in area of mountain rain forest that is so carbon dense it has a carbon reservoir value of approximately 90 Metric tons per acre. 

FBC's Green Team and staff were recognized as a Platinum-level
Green Business Leaders by the City of Austin, earlier this year. 

Win, Win, Win, Win

FBC's goal was to offset 300 Metric Tons of CO2.¹ The FBC Green Team donated enough funds to The Andes Mountain Orchid Preserve to offset roughly 525 Metric Tons and secure 5.8 acres of this preserve. This was an easy and affordable step for the group to take. It is also a monumental step forward for the church's overall environmental stewardship mission. By helping to fund the Andes Mountain Orchid Preserve, FBCAustin.org will help save: 1 critically endangered species; dozens of threatened bird, mammal, insect, amphibian, and plant species; reconnect a wildlife corridor between two similar plots to the east and west of the property, enabling greater overall biodiversity health; preserve prime annual carbon sequestration; protect a high-value, dense carbon sink; and support a project who's next phase is reforestation, greatly enhancing the long-term value and viability of this ecosystem. 

These remarkable, but critically endangered hummingbirds will now have a chance at survival!

Congrats & thanks to all involved in this effort to help to protect the creation!

To learn more about how you or your place of worship can go Carbon Positive, send us an email: "feat.outreach" at "gmail" dot com. 

1 FBC's remaining carbon footprint comes from things like: office supplies, water use, and global missions.