Eco Church
CO CHURCH at ROYSTON: OUR LATEST NEWS
In Spring 2022, Royston Parish Church was awarded “Eco Church Bronze award” from the A Rocha UK Eco Church award scheme. This promotes ways of caring for God’s earth in various ways (Worship & Teaching, Management of Buildings & Land, Community & Global Engagement and Lifestyle). Their resources gave us lots of ideas of more things that we could be doing, such as setting aside a wildlife area in our churchyard, praying regularly for the planet and adopting fair traded beverages.
We have recently held a “Design a Bug Church” competition for young people and have built a wildlife stack in the churchyard based on the winning design from Laura. Watch this space for pictures of the opening ceremony!
ECO CHURCH at ROYSTON: OUR GOALS
Royston Parish Church formed an Eco Church Group in 2020 with the following aims:
- We have passed a resolution for our parish church to achieve net zero by 2030. This is a daunting commitment to make as, right now, we cannot be sure how we will do this, but if we are to achieve it, we need to resolve to make this a priority.
- We have signed up to the A Rocha Eco Church and Carbon 360 schemes – these will give us practical tips and help us log the data we need to baseline our carbon footprint and measure our progress towards net zero.
- We have formed a “Net Zero/Eco-church team” for Royston Church with the following remit:
- To play our part in supporting the Church of England’s objective to be carbon neutral by 2030.
- To support the Diocese of St Albans in its Eco Church project.
- To reduce the carbon footprint of St John the Baptist Royston, working to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.
- To encourage bio-diversity.
- To encourage ecological and environmental awareness amongst the congregation and wider community of Royston.
- To ensure that St John the Baptist follows a policy of fair trade and to encourage fair trade amongst the congregation and the wider community of Royston.