Pictured: St Bartholomew's benefice have achieved silver awards for their churches and churchyards.
As part of the Climate Action strand of our vision, we seek to empower worshipping communities to take action to contribute to positive change. One of the easiest ways of doing this is by participating in A Rocha UK’s Eco Church Awards.
Watch our series of seven videos here, which will be shared throughout Autumn.
Their Eco Church website encourages people to take small steps and gain recognition along the way. It starts with a helpful checklist of questions for church groups to fill in to discover where they are already on their Eco Church journey.
There are three simple steps –
1. Go online to the Eco Church website
2. Add your church to the Eco Church Community
3. Take the Eco Church survey
The survey will help you think through steps you can take to become an Eco Church, from simple things like using hymns and songs that celebrate God’s creation to creating a wildlife area in the churchyard. You never know you might already qualify for an award already, becoming an Eco Church in an hour.
The benefits are huge – for the environment, your church and community and there are cost savings too.
We are calling on all worshipping communities, to be the change, and take part in our #EcoChurchInAnHour campaign in Autumn 2024. Share your stories with us as you take part by emailing comms@salisbury.anglican.org and we’ll share them across our social channels.
Contact us
Contact climateaction@salisbury.anglican.org
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Our net zero commitment
As part of our diocesan vision and strategy we pledge ourselves to action through Championing Climate Action, the fifth mark of mission, and achieving carbon net zero by 2030. This commits us, among other actions, to achieving the Eco Diocese Silver Award by 2026. This means we would need to acheive:
| Percentage of Churches | Number of Churches | |
| Registered Churches | 40% | 228 |
| Churches Awarded (Bronze) | 30% | 171 |
| Silver Award/Higher | 10% | 57 |
Currently we have a total of:
| Percentage of Churches | Number of Churches | |
| Registered Churches | 33% | 192 |
| Churches Awarded (Bronze) | 18% | 103 |
| Silver Award/Higher | 6% | 36 |
Beyond 2026 we are going to continue to support and encourage parishes to engage with the Eco Church scheme and are aiming at having 50% of local churches awarded Silver or higher by 2029.