Truro Cathedral floodlights to be turned off to reduce carbon footprint

Truro Cathedral is to turn off its night time floodlights permanently from February 2022.

The cathedral says that like all churches, it has been challenged by the Church of England nationally to reduce its carbon footprint to zero by the year 2030.

It says it's currently collating the energy use data that will inform its carbon reduction measures in the future, and that turning off the floodlights will also help reduce running costs.

Canon Elly Sheard, Canon for Creation Care: ''Driving our cars and heating our homes are two of the biggest contributors to the carbon footprint of individuals and, for institutions and organisations, power use and heating of offices are similarly substantial.

"It makes sense to start as we mean to go on – by phasing out energy use in whatever ways we can.

"Turning off the floodlights will, of course, also save us money which will be welcome as energy prices rise in the near future and will serve us well elsewhere in our operations.''

The sight of the famous three spires lit with a golden hue has dominated Truro's skyline at night for many years.

The cathedral says it has now done a rough calculation of the environmental impact of floodlighting the cathedral exterior and spires at night.

Canon Elly Sheard: ''The cathedral floodlights as currently used, emit roughly 2 tonnes of CO2 per year. For comparison, this is roughly half the amount of carbon emitted by the average car as used by most people in the UK.''

Canon Sheard says the move will be a start on the Cathedral’s journey towards reducing its carbon footprint to zero.