UPDATE May 2022

We have setup our Eco Group to work towards a GOLD award and had our first meetings. Please see Kate Anderson for more details.

UPDATE Mar 2021

We have just been awarded an Eco Church SILVER Award!

This is great news, but let's continue the journey as we head for a GOLD AWARD in the future.

UPDATE Feb 2021

Our Lent course is looking at the environment and our misuse of it. Do contact Rev'd Mike if you would like to join us.

We have set a date for September 5th for our Climate Sunday

We have started to look at the Climate Emergency Toolkit. If you would like to join this team do contact Rev'd Mike.

UPDATE Jan 2021

Rev'd Mike gave a powerful sermon on creation and has encouraged us all to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and look at our own carbon footprint.

UPDATE Dec 2020

We have now installed our AV equipment to limit our paper usage in Church.

UPDATE Oct 2020

We have been working on our garden area to make it friendly to the local wildlife.

UPDATE June 2020

We are currently working behind the scenes on our Eco Footprint. Just because we are in 'lockdown' doesn't mean we have forgotten our requirement to care for all of God's creation.

Jan 2020

St Saviour's Church is pleased to say that we have been awarded a Bronze Eco-Church award. 

The section below will give you more details about Eco-Church and what is involved.

Eco Church: Everything You Need To Know

A Rocha UK shares the same five core values as all the other national A Rocha organisations around the world:

Christian

Underlying all we do is our biblical faith in the living God, who made the world, loves it and entrusts it to the care of human society.

Conservation

We carry out research for the conservation and restoration of the natural world and run environmental education programmes for people of all ages.

Community

Through our commitment to God, each other and the wider creation, we aim to develop good relationships both within the A Rocha family and in our local communities.

Cross-cultural

We draw on the insights and skills of people from diverse cultures, both locally and around the world.

Cooperation

We work in partnership with a wide variety of organisations and individuals who share our concerns for a sustainable world.

Since its beginnings in 2001, A Rocha UK has been practically involved in nature conservation. Our first major nature conservation initiative was the transformation of a derelict and degraded plot of land in the London Borough of Hillingdon into Minet Country Park. Following on from the success of Minet, A Rocha UK is now engaged in another urban conservation initiative at a small site in Norwood Green known as ‘Wolf Fields’. Having long been abandoned to fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour, Wolf Fields is now being transformed by A Rocha UK, working in partnership with the local community, into a multi-purpose wildlife area including: a native fruit orchard, a sensory garden with local wild flowers, organic food growing allotments, bee hives, a small woodland for birds, and new paths to increase accessibility.

So, how does Eco Church work?

At the heart of Eco Church is a unique, online survey that enables churches to both record what they are already doing to care for God’s earth, and to reflect on what further steps they can take to that end and then act accordingly.

The survey covers all areas of church life: Worship and Teaching; Management of Church Buildings and Land; Community and Global Engagement; and Lifestyle. As such, it challenges churches to act in respect of the songs they sing and of the food they serve; of the energy they use and of the ethics of their investments; of the wildlife that finds a home on their land and of the water that flushes their loos; and so on…

Accompanying the survey is a whole new suite of online resources to help churches undertake the actions recommended in each of the five areas covered by the survey. These include: sermon outlines; youth materials; guides on food co-operatives and looking after church land in wildlife-friendly ways; and a lifestyle audit, to name but a few.

The Eco Survey is freely available to all visitors to the Eco Church website; however, in order to save their responses, churches will need to register on the website. Having created an account, they can then login on subsequent occasions to update their survey responses as they undertake new actions and initiatives by way of caring for creation.

As a church completes the survey they collect points towards an Eco Church Award. There are three levels of Eco Church Award – Bronze, Silver and Gold. In order to qualify for an Award churches must attain the required standard in each of the areas covered by the Eco Survey that apply to them (we recognise that some churches do not have buildings or land). Churches can see when they have gained sufficient points in each Eco Survey category by looking at the points gauges that appear on screen with the Eco Survey questions. The gauges will change colour as their points accumulate to reflect the level of Award they have achieved.

If all the relevant gauges turn bronze, the church has achieved a Bronze Award; if they all turn silver they have achieved a Silver Award, and so on. However, if just some of the gauges turn silver while the others turn bronze, for example, the church would have achieved a Bronze Award (rather than a Silver Award) because that is the level they have achieved in all the relevant areas. In this way, the scheme encourages churches to take action to care for creation across every aspect of their life together rather than just focussing on one area at the expense of all others.

Churches apply for their Award by downloading and completing the Award Application Form from the Eco Church website. For Bronze and Silver Awards we will require confirmation from the church leader that they have seen and approved the Eco Survey responses provided on behalf of their church. Additionally, for Gold Awards we will arrange for an Eco Church Assessor to visit the church to see and hear for themselves of all that’s been going on by way caring for God’s earth across the areas covered by the Eco Survey.

Award-winning churches will receive a certificate to mark their achievement and will have the option of purchasing (at cost) an Award plaque to display on their premises fashioned, appropriately enough, from recycled church pews at an Edinburgh-based community project.

A Rocha UK is delighted to provide Eco Church completely free of charge to churches in England and Wales, but we will be very grateful for donations from participating churches to help us keep it that way!

The very first Eco Church Award – a Bronze – was presented to St Paul’s Cathedral by Rowan Williams at the launch event. They were followed, very soon afterwards, by Lyme Regis Baptist Church and then by York Minster, and then by Collier Row Methodist Church in Romford, all of whom also gained Bronze Awards.