Faced with soaring electricity bills and heightened awareness about global warming, the Church yesterday launched a drive to reduce energy consumption in its parishes.

With 86 parishes, about 360 churches and chapels, hundreds of homes, buildings and offices around Malta and Gozo, the Church's water and electricity bill is quite hefty. There is no official figure, however, the Żejtun parish alone receives a bill ranging between €4,000 and €5,000 every two to three months, according to parish priest Fr Eric Overend. He did qualify, however, that the bill included all the Church buildings in the town.

His parish, along with the Curia buildings in Floriana and the Church's media headquarters, the Media Centre, in Blata l-Bajda, have been subjected to an energy audit, which the Church now plans to extend to all of its buildings across the Maltese islands.

The exercise will be an expensive one (though the cost has not been quantified yet), however, it will be worthwhile considering the financial and environmental savings that can be made, according to Mario Fsadni, from the Church's Environment Commission.

The announcement of the environmental drive yesterday comes some weeks after the Curia said it had made a loss of over €1 million in 2008, which were attributed to the impact of the international financial crisis and soaring expenses.

From a purely environmental perspective, it is estimated that Church activities generate between 100 and 150 tons of carbon dioxide a year, almost 0.05 per cent of the country's total emissions.

Moreover, the environment commission estimates that energy consumption during the week-long village feasts, that take up almost all of summer, increases threefold.

Since such a huge consumption is involved, even little things can bring about significant savings. The commission, in fact, reckons that just saving 50 watts per hour, or the equivalent energy used by a lap top, in every Mass of the 100,000 or so celebrated each year would cut carbon dioxide emissions by five tons and save the equivalent energy consumed by a small household (5,000 kilowatt hours over a year).

Before the audit, the commission will distribute a booklet with tips on reducing water and electricity consumption. Among other things, the guidelines call for use of energy saving bulbs, reducing the use of air conditioning, better utilisation of appliances and not wasting water. The traditional light bulbs used in feasts, for example, will have to be phased out and changed to more modern and efficient ones to fall in line with EU regulations, a change that certain parishes have implemented already this year. In the longer term, a greener approach would require a more wholesale change in mentality, Dr Fsadni said.