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News Eco Church: helping to secure our future

Eco Church: helping to secure our future

A Benefact Trust grant of £150,000 will support A Rocha UK to expand its reach, helping more churches to make a transformative contribution to the environmental crisis, and establish caring for the earth as a major part of the Church’s mission.
Recycling collection point, Summer bridge

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published an article in August 2021, which stated that there will be a 1.5C temperature rise by 2040. This could lead to more dramatic weather patterns and even faster global biodiversity loss.

Eco Church is a vision shared by A Rocha UK and its partner denominations, which includes the Anglican Church, to make UK churches more aware of their impact on the environment and take steps to make a positive contribution, caring for God’s creation.

The programme launched in 2016 and provides a free, comprehensive and practical framework for churches to engage and take action. It has been successful beyond expectations, with 3,400 churches across the UK signed-up by the end of 2020.

Over the next five years, A Rocha UK’s aim is for 15% of churches in England and Wales to join its Eco Church Community by 2025, which helps churches to celebrate what they’re doing to care for the environment and decide what to tackle next.

There is now a real need to move faster and help the Church to meet the urgency and scale of the environmental challenge. This means embedding Eco Church regionally as well as nationally, reaching out particularly to Wales and the North of England where growth has been slower. All six dioceses in Wales have registered to become Eco Dioceses, yet the uptake from local churches has been significantly less than in England.

Our funding over three years, will enable A Rocha UK to recruit two regional based advisors to promote and support further uptake in Wales and the North of England, both of which have distinctive needs. The grant will also help to identify and develop targeted support, volunteers, training events and conferences for those two regions, as well as useful resources for churches across the UK - you can find the recently launched resources, here.

The two job roles will be advertised later in the autumn and will have a huge impact on the Eco Church programme. Find out more about Eco Church.

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