Eco Church
Eco Church is a project run by A Rocha UK, a Christian charity working to protect and restore the natural world and committed to equipping Christians and churches in the UK to care for the environment.
What is Eco Church?
Eco Church is a learning community of churches of all shapes and sizes open to all denominations. It provides a framework to support your church and its leadership to take practical action on caring for God's earth. It includes a toolkit of resources, an online award survey, quarterly email update, online events, and conferences. The Eco Church survey will help you ‘go green’ in all areas of your church life. The work you do will all count towards a Bronze, Silver or Gold Eco Church award – hopefully all three.
The Eco Church survey
Our free online survey and supporting resources are designed to equip your church to express care for God’s world in your worship and teaching; in how you look after your buildings and land; in how you engage with your community both locally and globally; and in the personal lifestyles of your congregation.
The survey will guide you and help you assess your progress towards an Eco Church award – the more your church does, the more points you get! You can take action against climate change by switching to a green energy company or use Fairtrade for your tea and coffee supplies, for example.
The survey takes you through five key areas of church life:
- Worship and Teaching
- Management of Church Buildings
- Management of Church Land
- Community and Global Engagement
- Lifestyle
The survey takes about 20 minutes to fill in – but the amount of work your church does to qualify for an award and the time that takes is up to you! Once your survey indicates that you have enough points to apply for an award, you will be able to submit your application. The majority of churches reach Bronze in 4-6 months.
The survey takes into account whether or not your church has buildings or land. You can save your survey responses at any point and return to update them as your church completes additional actions. The award has three levels. At Bronze and Silver level, your church leader will need to sign off your application in order to confirm your survey responses. A Gold award will be granted following a visit to your church by an Eco Church assessor.
