The Eco Group is a small group of members of St Andrew's Church who are working to drive the church’s initiatives relating to environmental issues including the following 4 areas:
- Coordinate the promulgation of information about environmental issues
- Develop, with other stakeholders, green usages for the church grounds
- Support Building and Grounds group to reduce environmental impact
- Organise church events, both for members and the public
Our Church Grounds
The Eco Group have been working to make the church grounds more environmentally friendly. This has included the setting up of Bird Boxes and a Bug Hotel (details here).
Click here to download our latest plans for the churchyard.
The Bug Hotel
Eco Report
In the summer of 2022 we completed a church survey to find out about where were were as a church and what the views of the church were. This included:
- Survey of church members
- Carbon Footprint calculation
- Discussions with key church stakeholders
- Review of meetings and services held in the last 5 years
- Completion of A Rocha Eco Church survey
DOWNLOAD A COPY OF THE REPORT HERE
The key findings were:
Key issues for members of the church are energy use, managing resources and the local environment. Church members generally feel well informed about environmental issues but less so in relation to local issues. Nearly all Church members already do a lot of individual activities but more could be done as a church.
Environmental issues do have a place in worship but could have a higher profile and other events could be used to achieve this. While involved in some key campaigns, the church is not involved with many environmental organisations, particularly on the local level.
Our Eco Church rating is bronze or better in all areas except Land, we would need to do more with the church grounds to achieve Bronze. Our carbon footprint is 47.68 tons of CO2 per year.
There is both a will and opportunities for the church to focus on the following:
- Church to drive and promote its own initiatives
- Continuing action to reduce environmental impact of energy use
- Provide more information, particularly on local issues
- Church grounds provide opportunities for environmental action
- There are opportunities for events to engage with others
We are also working to achieve our Bronze status with A Rocha.
You can find out more about A Rocha here.