Sustainability

The Story so far......

In early 2024  the Church Council of St Mark's decided to join the EcoChurch Award Scheme. This would give us an structured approach to making the church more sustainable in all aspects of its operation. Until now our efforts have been piecemeal. 

But why bother?   

Well it seems that GOD want us to.  There are at least two clear commands in the Bible to guide us:

1. At the end of Genesis Chapter 1 ,GOD puts mankind in charge of the earth. 
2. According to the parable of the Good Samaritan, everyone is our neighbour.  If our lifestyle is contributing to climate global warming, causing sea levels to rise and threatening low lying countries  with obliteration, e.g.Bangladesh, Maldives and countless Pacific Islands , then we need to act. 

What have we done so far?

The Ecochurch scheme invites churches to complete a survey.  Use the link above to find a copy on the EcoChurch website. It's taken us time to gather the information to do this.  It showed we weren't far off achieving the Bronze Award.  To achieve bronze we needed to make church members more aware of the impact of their lifestyle, in particular completing a carbon audit of their household.  Why not try it yourself?

You'll need to gather information about your annual use of electricity and gas, annual mileage by car, bus, train and plane, your diet, plus other expenditure.

So now we have bronze what's next? 

Going for Silver!