Randall Penn and the University of Florida Extension Service in Sarasota began the Green Business Partnership in 2010 to help environmental management for local businesses. Since 2015, the Partnership has heavily focused on helping places of worship.
“Churches are always open. It’s not just on Sunday or Saturday night. There’s schools that are there, there’s programs that are week-long and they’re incredibly energy-intensive,” Randall Penn said.
The response has been nothing but positive from the several churches involved in the program.
“Additionally a number of churches have created these sort of green teams so the congregation has an interest to it. So, they’ve really reached out to me and been more of the driving force in this rather than us,” Penn said.
One church that has adopted a green team is the Faith Lutheran Church in Sarasota.
“Our green team has really took off. We have accommodated to using eco-friendly utensils, cups. We use eco-friendly mulch out on our landscaping, recycle bins, you know the normal stuff. We’re in the transition to have all of our lighting to be LED,” Wendy Houston of Faith Lutheran Church said.
Anyone interested in learning more about the Green Business Partnership can go to:
