Earth-Friendly Practices – Interfaith Creation Care of the Triangle

Survey Results & Resources

“Our climate change work is intentionally connected to environmental justice, economic opportunity, and anti-racism work. We enjoy and rely on collaboration with other congregations, and look for opportunities to share with and learn from them. Thank you to the congregations who have taught us and sustained us” – Community United Church of Christ.

Survey Results & Resources

ICCT sponsors an ongoing Survey to track the Earth-Friendly Practices of its member communities. Click the links below to take the survey, see the results, or coordinate with other faith communities.

Earth Friendly Practices Survey

We want to hear about your faith community’s creation care work and aspirations. You are invited to share them here.

Survey Results Map

This interactive map shows the faith communities that have responded to the survey so far.

Contact a Faith Community

Don’t reinvent the wheel; help is available. Contact other faith communities engaged in the work you are currently contemplating or want to do.

Detailed Survey Responses

For each community who responded to our survey, this table lists the Earth-Friendly Practices they are engaged in such as recycling, energy-efficient measures, sustainable gardening, creation care worship practices, and action/advocacy.

Additional Survey Responses

View what our member communities say about Zero Waste Practices, educational opportunities, and youth activities, as well as other activities they would like you to know about.

General Earth Care Resources

These resources have been carefully compiled and divided into sections for a variety of uses and specialized interests.

Earth-Friendly Practices Map

This map shows the faith communities that have responded to the survey so far. To filter by a specific practice or denomination, click in one or both of the filter boxes.

Filter by Practices

To see where a faith community is located: click their name on the list or click on a map marker
To hide or restore the list: click the “Arrow” tab on the list’s right edge.
To make the map full-screen: click the “Box” icon in the map’s top right corner
To zoom in or out: click the Plus or Minus signs in the map’s bottom right corner
To move to another section of the map: click and hold anywhere on the map, then move the mouse

Contact a Faith Community with Similar Interests

To find out which communities implement a given practice, select from the list of practices in the drop-down box above the map. The map will display the Faith Communities that follow those practices, and you can select one that matches your interests.

Then fill out the form below the map to request contact information for that community.

Detailed Survey responses

For each community who responded to our survey, this table lists the Earth-Friendly Practices they are involved in, such as recycling, solar panels, energy-efficient measures, sustainable gardening, and action/advocacy.

To view a list of practices for a community, click the green “+” icon to the left of its name.

Faith Community	Religion / Denomination	Creation care team?	Integrating Creation Care into Worship	Recycling	Composting	Energy Efficiency Measures	Solar Panels	Sustainable Gardening	CSA programs	Action / Advocacy Programs	What educational opportunities about climate-friendly practices does your faith community provide?	What youth activities about creation care does your faith community provide?	Is there anything else you would like to share about your faith community's creation care efforts?
Binkley Baptist	Baptist	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	In sunday school, vacation Bible school, Wednesday night dinners, and sunday services	Litter pickups primarily	We are helping other faith communities to adopt creation care practices
Church of the Nativity	Episcopalian	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	adult formation, website, social media, emails, and weekly newsletter	Pre-school	Our Priest frequently relate lessons to creation care and speaks in the greater community about creation care.
Community United Church of Christ	United Church of Christ	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	On-going education about participatory actions like composting, shared proper disposal of florescent tubes & batteries, collection of unrequested/unused plastic cutlery from take out meals. Currently educating for a congregational vote on a carbon covenant for our buildings, which would set us on the road to plan to meet the IPCC's greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. Please pray for us in this process!	Youth (middle/high) are included in adult activities, and specific youth with a passion for creation care are invited to be part of leadership/planning for events, as their interest permits. Children (elementary) plant & harvest Plant a Row for the Hungry garden. Deliberate inclusion of creation-connected activities included in youth programmatic events.	a) Our climate change work is intentionally connected to environmental justice, economic opportunity, and anti-racism work. b) We enjoy and rely on collaboration with other congregations, and look for opportunities to share with and learn from them. Thank you to the congregations who have taught us and sustained us!
Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship	Unitarian Universalist	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Over the years, we have provided numerous educational opportunities about climate-friendly practices to include courses, presentations, workshops, themed weeks and months (e.g., plant-based diet week and Earth & Climate Justice Month), written articles, and other educational events (e.g., a sustainable living fair).	As part of our Green Sanctuary Accreditation Initiative, we have a dedicated youth educational project, Greening the Religious Education (RE) Youth Curriculum. Lila Rosa, the current Project 1 lead, worked with RE staff and parents to research, select, and begin implementation of a curriculum that satisfies the goals of this project and the needs of RE, Books and Cooks, Part I and II. The Current Audience: 2nd through 5th graders, mostly 4th and 5th graders. Every cooking experience can acknowledge and honor all the beings in the web of life present in this food at this moment, supporting our knowledge of and experience in the UU 7th Principle. In addition, a new curriculum called Harry and UU was introduced for 3rd-5th graders in 2019 that contains many lessons on protecting the environment and learning about the natural world. It uses the world of Harry Potter and the imagery of Dumbledore’s Army fighting horcruxes (world problems). One of the EJ members, Betsy Bickel, has co-taught this curriculum in 2019-2020 and again in 2021-2022. Our students chose environmental degradation as one of the horcruxes they wanted to fight. When we moved to virtual meetings due to the pandemic some of our teachers created a website and many of our lessons can be seen there. Here is a link to that website https://sites.google.com/view/harryanduuateruuf/home?authuser=0 Between the 9:00 and 11:15 sessions 17 virtual classes were taught about environmental issues including Earth Day, growing a garden, biodiversity, lemurs and habitat loss, pollinators, animal welfare, water, plastics, wildlife and an eco-challenge. In addition to these curricula, it is important to note that the Director of RE Youth of the last five years, Julia Tyler, has led and helped steward significant progress in the realm of “greening” all aspects of the ERUUF RE Youth Program. For example, when she started, RE support staff prepared all materials (mostly unsustainable materials) for all classes each Sunday. Over time, she shifted the expectation from all supplies pre-prepared and ready to go for the maximum number of possible participants to the expectation that teachers would request the supplies they wanted, because often the pre-prepared materials were not even getting used. She also spent time in the annual teacher training talking about how to find alternative, sustainable materials for their curriculum. (For example, substitute pine cones and stones from ERUUF's woods for plastic or foam shapes from China.) Furthermore, she asked an Earth Justice member, parent, and RE teacher to present at an annual teaching training on substituting sustainable materials for the curriculum's suggestions; making use of the materials we already have at ERUUF, and occasionally replacing a craft and materials altogether with non-material games, stories or activities. Furthermore, at the end of every RE year, there is a "Something Out of Nothing" session for K-12th grade in which we rummage through the RE closets, talk about our UU 7th principle, and also the mysteriousness of the concept- how could something come from nothing? By 2019, RE teachers selecting sustainably sourced materials had become the norm. This greening effort extends into Nifty Gifty- one of the biggest, most beloved R.E. traditions- Nifty Gifty. Nifty Gifty is the annual gathering of 35-40 kids (plus a dozen adults and youth helpers) on the first Saturday of December. The participants each make 7-10 crafts that can serve as holiday gifts for friends and family (so several hundred gifts are getting made and wrapped = lots of supplies). Over the last few years, the volunteers and staff have moved the focus, materials and intentions of Nifty Gifty towards our environmental justice values. From sourcing supplies and snacks, to discarding waste, from carefully choosing gift projects to wrapping choices, we've worked towards minimizing waste and celebrating our 7th principle at this event. An additional RE greening effort which relates to the RE Youth Environmental Justice Project (RE Project III ) is the ERUUF Community Garden (aka Community Edible Landscape Program). For the past several summers, at least one Sunday every summer, RE Youth have enjoyed hands-on classes oriented around the garden. This past summer, the RE Youth Program accepted full stewardship responsibilities of the ERUUF Community Garden which allowed RE Youth hands-on learning opportunities every week throughout the summer.	Eno River UU Fellowship started a formal congregational greening process in 2017. The Unitarian Universalist Association refers to this as, "Green Sanctuary." As summarized on the UUA Green Sanctuary web page, " Green Sanctuary (GS) is a unique opportunity for deep congregational growth and transformation through a commitment to make every aspect of congregational life as sustainable and environmentally responsible as possible. This comprehensive program educates congregations about their environmental impact as institutions and individuals. Action plans seek to increase building sustainability, improve congregational practices, and create relationships within the wider community." Our approved Green Sanctuary Action Plan includes 12 projects over four categories of congregational life. Last month, we completed our projects and the accreditation application. Currently, we are working with our ministers to finalize the document and plan to hold a congregational vote at our 2022 annual meeting in June. The chairs of the Earth Justice Action Group and core leaders of the Green Sanctuary Team are open to sharing more about our process with other congregations.
First Presbyterian Church, Durham NC	Presbyterian	Yes	Yes	Yes	In Progress	In Progress	In Progress	Yes	Yes	Yes
Greystone Baptist Church	Baptist	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	In Progress	No	Yes	No	In Progress	Our Spirit of Justice Team offers blog posts and organizes church outings re: creation care.	Community garden, community clean-up initiatives	We're looking to learn more and grow in this area!
Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral/Sacred Heart Church	Roman Catholic	Yes	In Progress	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	In Progress	Seminars on Laudato Si' Encyclical; monthly newsletter; periodic topic in Justice Bulletin Board; email regarding creation care opportunities; Lenten 2022 Eco-calendar distribution to church and school; prayer services at globe at NC Museum of Natural Sciences.	2021 - Parachutes for the Planet with students at the Cathedral School; Lenten 2022 Eco-calendar for students; Presentation to faith formation classes.	It is very hard to get our faith community motivated around creation care. In our new Cathedral we have installed building automation controls. We had a 21% savings last year over the previous year.
Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church	Greek Orthodox	No	In Progress	In Progress	In Progress	Yes	No	No	No	No	We have not discussed the climate issue specifically with a guest speaker yet.	Kids from the Sunday School do a little gardening from time to time.	Nothing much going on; get back with us in a year.
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church	Roman Catholic	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	In Progress	Yes	Yes	Yes	We have provided information, resources, etc. on the following topics: Solar Panels; Water Conservation; Care for Creation and Saint Francis Week Activities; Climate Change; Laudato Si', Carbon-free home; pollinators/native plants; household tips; simple living.	Tree Planting; Laudato Si' education; Creation Care kits; environmental education	Our Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) "Care for Creation" (Green Team) coordinates events throughout the year focused specifically on addressing social justice issues related to climate change and the environment. As a Laudato Si' parish, this is an issue that is very important to our faith community.
Kadampa Center	Buddhist	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	None	Community trash cleanup	We volunteer for disaster cleanups and have outreach sessions creating bird feeders
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church	Baptist	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	In Progress	Yes	Yes	Yes	Regular submissions to newsletter articles. We have also had a strong and vibrant Sunday School Class on Creation Care	There is usually a program each summer on raising awareness & teaching practices of Earth Care with our youth	We are currently investigating a solar system for part of our church's energy needs - each day getting closer to a 'yes'! We are also endeavoring to install a new roof top garden with nothing but native plants. Most of our gardens are watered with an underground cistern that collects rain water. We have geothermal energy in one of our buildings.
St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Community	Roman Catholic	Yes	In Progress	In Progress	In Progress	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Weekly bulletin suggestions, Season of Creation (Sept.to Oct. 4th the Feast of St. Francis) programs, youth programs, Earth Day, staff volunteer day, programs about sustainable food, composting, etc.	Our youth formation and TFS students are offered periodic service projects and learning related to creation care. Adolescent Confirmation candidates engage in environmental service projects. Students participate in an annual Earth Week program with speakers, prayer and workshops. Environmental elective courses are offered periodically as well as opportunities to visit/help in the Franciscan Community Garden.	+ Duke’s Energy Wise program is unavailable because of solar panel use program + Divestment is addressed at the Raleigh Diocesan level + St. Francis of Assisi parish is beginning to develop its own framework for the Vatican’s seven year Laudato Sí Action Plan to implement sustainability in all sectors of the church.
St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church	Roman Catholic	No	No		No	Yes	No	No	No	No	None	Not sure
St. Thomas More Chapel Hill	Roman Catholic	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No			STM has engaged in the Laudato Si' Action Platform and will develop a 2022plan in 1Q2022.
The Chapel of the Cross	Episcopalian	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	We have provided a number of presentations on environmental justice, the church's role in combating climate change, how to communicate about climate change, regenerative farming practices, and the role that local government is playing.	None	We conducted a major expansion and renovation of our facility within the past few years and this has provided us with an opportunity to implement many energy efficient practices. The Creation Care Committee publishes a monthly newsletter that is shared electronically with all parishioners. We also have a Creation Care item in every weekly bulletin.
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh	Unitarian Universalist	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	We've had a number of environmental education sessions at Wellspring meetings on Wednesday nights and Sunday morning Forum meetings.	Earth Day activities for all ages	We participated in the Raleigh Heat Mapping project in the summer of 2021. We are assessing a campus-wide replacement of all HVAC systems which will increase efficiency and lower our carbon footprint. We are in the process of defining our carbon footprint over the past few years so we can track and continue to lower it.
West Raleigh Presbyterian Church	Presbyterian	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Earthcare movies shown. Series of Sunday School classes focused on earth care. Newsletter articles about webinars or other online educational programs. Church explains and offers CSA produce. Ongoing opportunity to work in Pollinator Garden to learn of best practices. Post ideas for zero waste on social media.	Have shown movie on bees to youth recently.	We have a Green Bin for fabric recycling parked at the church. We use compostable cups and plates during this time we offer food/receptions outside. Otherwise, food/drink served in china/glass/plastic containers which are washed and reused.
St. Andrews Presbyterian Church,	Presbyterian	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Annual adult classes.
Watts Street Baptist Church, Durham	Baptist	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	webinars	occasional programing
First Presbyterian Church	Presbyterian	Yes	Yes	Yes	In Progress	In Progress	In Progress	In Progress	Yes	Yes	Faith formation (Sunday School) series for children, youth and adults; Creation Care class for confirmation	Volunteer with Farm Church, Keep Durham Beautiful; Youth group hiking and camp activities; youth member of creation care committee	We are working to install solar in the next 12 months
Nobles Chapel Baptist Church	Baptist	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	We have a Wilderness Sunday School class for young people by the church's creek and other spaces on the church's property. We are a very rural congregation and many members own or work in farms.	Wilderness Sunday School	Most families grow their own food, share the vegetables, and eat in season. We sometimes have vegetarian meals from the garden produce.
Temple Beth Or	Jewish	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	In Progress	Yes	Yes	No	No
St. Michael's Episcopal	Episcopalian	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
Pittsboro Presbyterian Church	Presbyterian, USA	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	In Progress	Yes	No	No
Benson Memorial United Methodist Church	Methodist	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Hayes Barton United Methodist Church	Methodist	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	In Progress

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Additional Survey Responses

View what our member communities have to say about Zero Waste Practices, educational opportunities, and youth activities, as well as other creation care activities they would like you to know about.

Zero Waste Practices

Educational Opportunities

Youth Activities

Additional Comments