We are proud to announce we have received the Silver Eco Church Award.

To make the move from a bronze award to the silver award, we primarily focused on our carbon footprint.  We looked at the footprint of the church and the building over the last few years.

We calculated our carbon footprint before covid hit. This enabled us to see what our emissions were pre pandemic, before lockdowns and restrictions, when we were at our busiest.

The next step was to look at the things we could do to reduce our carbon footprint.

An action plan to reduce our footprint is now in place and we also made the decision to offset the emissions we can’t reduce. This means making a donation to ARocha to fund projects which specifically look at emission reduction. If you want the story so far or to read more about the things we’ve been doing, please click on the link to our eco journey document. The journey continues and we will keep looking at what we can do better and how we can continue to spread the eco message to all.

We’re delighted to say that we’ve recently gained a Bronze Award in the eco-Church scheme, recognising our desire as a church community to play our part in caring for and protecting the whole of God’s creation to which we belong.

The eco-Church scheme is run by the charity A Rocha UK, in partnership with Christian Aid, The Church of England, The Methodist Church, Tearfund, The United Reformed Church and Allchurches Trust Limited. Worldwide, A Rocha (Portugese for ‘a rock’) works for the protection and restoration of the natural world and is committed to equipping Christians and churches to care for the environment. More information is available at arocha.org.uk

To reach gain our Bronze Award, a small group of church members and friends has been assessing aspects of our church life including our worship and teaching, our buildings and land, how we engage with the local community on eco-matters, and our own lifestyles as Christians. We’ve answered postively on 25% of the questions to reach the Bronze level: to gain a Silver Award, this needs to reach 50% but we are already starting to look at what this will mean for us. if you would like to help with this please contact us.

We are working hard to improve our own carbon footprint. As a church we look at how we are impacting on the environment and what we can do better. Our garden club is working to ensure that the small outside space we have, supports the local wildlife. We think carefully about what is planted and how we maintain the land. Our Eco Group is meeting regularly and our focus is on improving and reducing our impact on the community around us.