More details on the award can be found here - ecochurch.arocha.org.uk

Eco Church is an initiative run by a company called A Rocha. It is the UK’s award scheme for churches in England and Wales in encouraging communities to care for ‘God’s Acre’. The scheme takes the form of an online survey of our church and environmental journey, and via the survey we earned points based on our approach in five key areas:

• Worship and teaching

• Buildings

• Land

• Community and Global engagement

• Lifestyle

Various actions and initiatives are captured within these areas such as managing the diversity of flowers and encouraging wildlife in the churchyard to hosting Wildlife Days, using Fairtrade products in our church café and twinning our church toilet with a toilet in a developing country – Cote d’Ivoire in our case - many aspects all contributed to our Silver Award success.

Eco Church is provided without charge, the intent is to help as many churches (and their communities) to celebrate what they’re already doing to care for the environment.

Our next steps will be to re-visit our survey and look at areas where we can improve our commitment to caring for God’s creation, and hopefully progressing ourselves to a Gold award.

A Rocha UK wrote: “Well done to everyone who has worked so hard to reach this milestone! From everyone at A Rocha UK, thank you. Thank you for becoming a beacon for saving nature. Thank you for joining A Rocha UK’s Eco Church movement. Nature is crying out. Thank you on behalf of the insects that are now buzzing, the birds that are singing, and the plants that are springing into life.”

Without the initiatives, encouragement and support of the many volunteers throughout the Bourtons we could not have achieved this - so a big thank you to everyone who has and continues to help.