What we do

Energy Assessments

PA IPL provides energy assessments at a reduced cost to our member congregations. Depending on the size and age of the building, the assessment can take from 2-4 hours and provides a report for congregations to understand the way that they currently use energy and identify specific options to start saving energy immediately and in the long term. PA IPL has also started a revolving loan program to provide member congregations with funds for capital improvements that will save energy and reduce their carbon footprint. Click here to become a member and here to read a news article about this initiative. Read about one congregation’s story here. Our Penn State student IPL also provides weatherizing services to local families, and our weatherization first initiative helps local congregations reduce energy usage in our neighbors’ homes.

Education

PA IPL serves as a clearinghouse for information on energy usage and climate change. On our newly expanded resource page we provide films and speakers for congregational events; we organize workshops and an annual conference (for a list of past events, click here). To arrange for a speaker or film showing at your congregation, contact Executive Director Cricket Hunter at chunter@paipl.org We keep in touch with members through a monthly newsletter, a monthly call in, our facebook page and our blog. For archived newsletters of PA IPL, click here.

Advocacy

PA IPL represents our members on the local, state, and national level to advocate for legislation that will increase energy efficiency and reduce our contribution to climate change. Our unique message is to focus attention on the moral implications of climate change. While big producers of greenhouse gases, such as the United States and Europe, are wealthy enough to adapt to anticipated weather changes in the short term, these same changes are devastating to poorer countries. Those who have contributed the least to global warming are those that will suffer the most from its effects. We took this message to Congress in our energy efficiency campaign in summer of 2010, our campaigns to save EPA funding in 2011-12, and we continue to spread the word in the news media, including this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, featuring two of our board members. Currently, we are joining several other organizations in supporting the EPA’s new rules on Industrial Carbon Pollution. Click here to learn more, and read this recent op-ed by PA IPL vice president, Rabbi Daniel Swartz. Because of the important of shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania, we also wrote this ethical analysis, discussing gas development in light of climate change.

Pennsylvania Interfaith Power & Light * 205-IPL Pasquerilla Spiritual Center * University Park, PA 16802

info@paipl.org * 814-876-2597

As our mission statement says: “PA IPL responds to climate change as a moral issue, through advocacy, energy conservation, energy efficiency, and the use of clean, renewable energy.” Put more simply, we want to help congregations think about energy usage as a matter of stewardship, and we carry this out in three ways:

We have also partnered with local energy services company Envinity to provide subsidized energy audits for Pennsylvania congregations. See other business supporters here.

The Rock Ethics Institute of Penn State has given PA IPL an annual grant of $5,000 in each of the past three years to promote ethics education on climate change. This grant has already helped to support several public events; we have also purchased several copies of the film Renewal to show in congregations across the State.

How we do it

PA IPL depends on the work of its all-volunteer board, its hundreds of supporters, and its part-time executive director. We are funded by individual and congregational memberships, donations, and the generosity of our partner organizations. Read our 2012 annual report here. Currently, PA IPL is administering three grants:

Interfaith Power & Light

As a state affiliate, we have received four major grants from National Interfaith Power & Light. The first was to run our EERS campaign in the summer of 2010, and the second helped to support the hiring of an executive director. In 2012 we implemented regrants for our Clean Air Promise campaign and matched a $12,000 challenge grant. For 2013, National IPL has awarded us a $10,000 grant to help us create a circle of major donors.