When a group of people from our church started getting together to explore ways of caring for God’s creation in a more serious way we came across the A Rocha Foundation which provides material and an award system to become an Eco Church. In mid-April, and after much teamwork, we were pleased to be granted the bronze Eco Church award!

Going through the A Rocha questionnaire reassured us to continue our prayers for creation, organise church services with environmental topics and maintain our focus on encouraging people to adapt to a more caring lifestyle that reduces waste, recycles more and shops for locally sourced and ethically produced goods. It also inspired us to organise more nature walks, open to the whole community and not just church members, and to continue our support of other local organisations and their environmental projects, such as beach clean-ups.

We have seen some wonderful changes in church members’ views and behaviour towards plastic use, consumerism and abuse of resources and increased awareness of the connection between our behaviour and the consequences for God’s creation, especially the impact on people from poorer countries.

We now hope to make more changes in lowering our carbon footprint by switching our chaplaincy electric supplier to one that only uses renewable energy and by taking further steps as we work towards the silver Eco Church award.