Eco Church

LCC is an Eco-church silver award winner, committed to caring for the environment which is one of the 5 marks of mission for the Anglican communion.

Eco Church is A Rocha UK’s award scheme for churches in England and Wales who want to demonstrate that the gospel is good news for the whole of God’s creation, and Locking Castle church is committed to making sure we honour God and demonstrate our love for others by celebrating and caring for creation.

Andy Watts is our designated Eco champion and the ECC, along with the Eco-church team, look for ways to help the church to express our care for God’s world in our worship and teaching; in how we look after our buildings and land; in how we engage with our local community and in global campaigns, and in the personal lifestyles of our congregation.

We are now working towards gaining the Eco Church Gold Award through initiatives such as the Repair Cafe and contributing to local environmental awareness campaigns. So far we have switched our electricity and gas supplies to be Carbon neutral, made sure our coffee cups are recycled and started to look at other ways of saving energy and reducing our environmental impact. We have also introduced Green Sunday at Harvest festival to teach on environmental issues and our responsibilities as followers of the way of Jesus.

The scheme is supported by A Rocha, Christian Aid, Tear Fund, The Church of England and the Methodist Church.

What can you do?

We will be adding suggestions on how you can join in throughout the year but here are some initial ideas:

• Make a commitment to reduce your environmental impact within three high-impact behaviour areas: transportation, energy, and food. livingthechange.net/commitment-tool. Email your commitment cards to eco ‘at’ locking castlechurch.org
• Check your personal carbon footprint using the World Wildlife Fund footprint calculator: https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/
• Offset your carbon emissions by planting trees in Kenya. Estimates vary but each tree planted should absorb at least 10kg of Carbon per year. See https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/trees4kenya for details.