Godfrey Armitage, Diocesan Environment Officer, gives us an update on Eco Church.
If you are registered for Eco Church, you are probably aware that the criteria for awards have been updated. The original criteria were devised in 2016 and since then so much has changed, not least the Net Zero Carbon 2030 pledge of the Church of England General Synod in 2020 and this year’s Biodiversity pledge. A Rocha UK who run Eco Church have updated the awards to make them relevant and to help those churches that do not have a churchyard or that have a churchyard that is administered for example by the local council. They have also taken into account those churches that do not meet in their own building or that do not meet regularly.
If you have been working on an award since September or earlier this year, you have until the end of January to submit your application for this award based on the old criteria. May I encourage you to try to complete this as soon as possible to avoid having to have all the extra effort of restarting your survey using the new criteria.
If you are new to Eco Church or have started to work on an award since September, you will find that the Eco Church website directs you automatically to the new criteria for your survey. Please look at the excellent guidance produced by Hannah Mann of the Diocese of Oxford here.
If you would like a speaker to give a presentation on Eco Church or if you would like materials to help you produce your own presentation, please contact me at Godfrey.Armitage@Coventry,Anglican.org.