How ‘green’ are you?


Both our churches have been registered ECO churches for a few years now. We hold a bronze award and are on a journey to achieve silver. A start has been made recently to survey the wildlife in St John’s churchyard and some local specialist volunteers will be helping us to make choices to encourage the wildlife in our already beautiful churchyard further. If you would like to see the survey questions and what your local church has replied, use this link to register ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/ and connect with St John.

One way for a church to earn the required points towards an award is to encourage members of the congregation and the wider community to become aware of their own lifestyle and help them to improve. There are two great tools for you to look at and try out:

* carbon footprint
There are several but one we have used recently in the Lent course is footprint.wwf.org.uk/. Create your account and answer the questions to see how you contribute to the UK target to become carbon zero by 2045.

* environmental audit
Similar to the ECO church award scheme that we use as churches there is now a creation care scheme creationcare.org.uk/ to help you see where your household can improve in its choices to become more environmentally friendly. We would encourage you to link with your church (St John, St Margaret’s or your local church if it takes part) so we can celebrate with you when you reach a new award level. Rest assured that nobody but you can see how you answered the questions. We only get a notification when you have reached an award level. Three households in our community have already reached award level and soon we will publish them (hopefully with a few more by then) for encouragement of all.