General Synod voted in February 2020 for the whole of the Church of England to achieve net zero carbon by 2030 and asked for a plan of action to be made, setting out how to get to net zero carbon. The vote recognised that the global climate emergency is a crisis for God’s creation and a fundamental injustice.

The plan of action, called the Routemap, was approved by General Synod in July 2022 in a Motion that asked for the Routemap to be endorsed, requested every Diocesan Synod to debate the Routemap as it applies to them, requested high energy users (including cathedrals) within the Church to draw up a programme of action based on the Routemap, and called for progress reports to Synod every three years.

The Routemap was written by the Net Zero Carbon sub-committee of the national Environmental Working Group. It went to consultation from October 2021 to February 2022 and the responses received (which included our own response) helped shape the final version. You can view the Routemap here. There are a number of milestones applicable to Portsmouth Cathedral and from 2025 we aim to publish our progress against these milestones in conjunction with aligning our carbon footprint to the Church of England net zero carbon scope. 

You can find the Environmental Working Group’s national definition of net carbon zero here.