What is Eco-Church?
Eco-Church is a comprehensive program run by A Rocha UK, a Christian charity working to protect and restore the natural world by equipping Christians and churches in the UK to care for the environment. It helps churches in England and Wales integrate environmental care into their mission. It provides a framework for auditing, improving, and celebrating action in worship, land management, community engagement, and lifestyle, with Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards available.
The primary goal of the program is to support churches to act as stewards of creation and to reduce their environmental impact.
The Church of England encourages its churches to undertake the survey and to use the identified actions to support their journey toward becoming Net Zero Carbon churches.
St. Thomas’ Church has been registered for Eco-Church for some years and achieved a Bronze Award in 2021. It is currently working toward the Silver Award.
Key Aspects of Eco Church
• A Rocha UK provides tools and resources, including a web-based survey to track progress on eco-friendly actions.
• The program focuses on five specific areas: Worship and teaching, Buildings and energy, Land and nature, Community and global engagement, and Lifestyle.
• Churches can gain Bronze, Silver, or Gold awards by reaching the threshold in all the categories for that award – 25% for Bronze, 50% for Silver and 75% for Gold.
• The program is open to churches of all denominations.
Role of the Deanery Environmental Champion
The Fifth Anglican Mark of Mission calls on us all to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and to sustain and renew the life of the earth. In responding to this call, the Church of England has decided that it will become Net Zero Carbon by 2030. But to do that, it needs to work in partnership with individual parishes.
As part of its response, Birmingham Diocese has set up a network of Deanery Environmental Champions (DEC), who can feed though to parishes the information and help they need to work with the wider church in ensuring that we all tread more lightly on the earth.
Most information and updates will be provided by email. The DEC will also hold meetings, approximately every three months, usually via Zoom, to share information and experience.
Role of the Parish Environmental Champion
Each parish needs one or more contacts (a Parish Environment Contact or “PEC”), to act as a channel for the information and assistance being shared by the DEC.
Ideally, the person (or people) will have a particular interest in caring for God’s creation, but they do not need to have any special knowledge about climate change or what is needed to tackle it.
The PEC doesn’t necessarily need to be a member of the PCC, but they will need to feed the relevant information they receive to the PCC and the wider church.
The DEC is available to talk to individual PECs directly about any queries they may have or assistance they need.
St. Thomas’ Church PEC is Linda Nugent. Linda is also the PEC for St. Richard’s Church, Lea Hall and the DEC for Coleshill and Polesworth Deanery.