Our church is part of the Eco Church Community and is committed to its principles to care for God's creation through worship, buildings, land, community engagement and individual lifestyles.

We are delighted to announce that St Mary’s has recently achieved a Silver Award in the A Rocha Eco Church Scheme. This follows on from our Bronze Award in May 2022.

The award could not have been achieved without the involvement and encouragement of many people, and we are extremely grateful for everyone’s input, particularly in the churchyard.

We shall be having a little break from the scheme now, but will continue with Eco Church activities, as action to prevent Climate Change and biodiversity loss is too important to be put on hold.

I shall be taking more of a back seat in St Mary’s Eco Church now, but newcomers and new ideas will be welcomed.

Janet Edwards

Eco Church is a scheme run by A Rocha and the ethos behind Eco Church is underpinned by the National Church’s goal to become Net Zero by 2030. In simple terms, Net Zero means, making no contribution to global warming. This is achieved by ensuring that the amount of fossil fuels (carbon) we put into the atmosphere is matched by the amount of carbon we take out of the atmosphere. Hence the term ‘Carbon Neutral’.

How A Rocha can help

A Rocha has an award scheme called Eco Church, for churches who want to demonstrate that they are committed to becoming more Eco friendly. They have three awards, Bronze, Silver and Gold and St Mary's has already been awarded a Bronze award and is on its way to being awarded a silver.

Please take a look at what the Eco Church committee has done to earn its award and what it hopes to achieve going forward