We are delighted that our church in Ruyton XI Towns has qualified for the ECO Church Bronze Award. This award scheme, started in 2016, helps churches to take practical steps towards caring for creation.

We achieved this award by looking at everything we do and then making changes. It required efforts in all areas of church life – from worship and buildings to lifestyle and community. Here are some examples of changes we made which helped us to qualify for Bronze:

• Changing lighting to energy-efficient light bulbs
• Switching to a renewable energy supplier
• Avoiding single use plastics (e.g. cups for refreshments)
• Encouraging lift sharing or walking/cycling to church services and events
• Putting up bird boxes in the churchyard with swift boxes to follow ready for summer 2021
• Switching to recycled toilet paper
• Swapping to environmentally friendly cleaning products

We know we can do more and we are committed to do so – we aim to strive for the silver award next and then hopefully for gold.

Go to the ECO Church website if you want to find out more about the awards and the organisation behind them.