A Golden First for Llanllwch
St. Mary's Church, Llanllwch, has become the first in St Davids Diocese to achieve an Eco Church Gold Award.
Eco Church is a free online award scheme launched by A Rocha UK, a Christian nature conservation charity, mobilising churches to care for the natural world.
It helps churches link environmental issues to their Christian faith and respond with practical action in the church, people’s lives, and the local and global community. It has awards at three levels (bronze, silver, and gold) and considers how the environment is addressed within five key areas: worship and teaching, buildings and land, community and global engagement, and lifestyle.
Congratulating the St Mary's Eco Team, A Rocha's officer for Wales, Delyth Higgins, praised their "motivation, energy, and enthusiasm."
And it all started with one enthusiastic curate, as LMA Dean Ann Howells explains:
"Our journey began when Revd Lorna Bradley was Curate. Her concern for green issues inspired us to get started. A small group of church members came together to look at the Eco Church questionnaire: Worship and teaching, Buildings, Land, Community and global engagement and Lifestyle.
"We discovered that we were already doing some of the things listed, including concern for the environment in our worship and teaching and managing the churchyard to encourage wildflowers and provide a habitat for insects, invertebrates, birds and mammals. We gained the Bronze award in May 2022.
"When Revd Sarah Llewellyn joined us, she became involved in the church Eco Group and we began working towards the Silver award. One church member made bird and bat boxes, together with a beautiful bird feeder in the shape of a church door.
"We looked more closely at our church and hall building, replacing oil-fired heating with electric to reduce our carbon footprint. Our faculty application to install solar panels on the church roof was granted in September 2024. The completion of the project has been delayed due to having to apply for planning permission, which has not been straightforward. We achieved a Silver Eco Church award in July 2024.
"Spurred on by this success, we decided to ‘go for Gold’. The criteria for the Gold award is much tougher; a land management plan was drawn up for our churchyard, with tasks allocated throughout the year. We needed to complete a comprehensive 360 degree carbon footprint survey for the church and hall including travel, food and expenditure.
"A water butt was installed to collect water from the church roof for flowers, two compost bins have been placed around the graveyard along with two bins for recycled material; we made sure our cleaning products were eco-friendly, and started using recycled paper and toilet paper. We undertook a bird and wildlife survey, a butterfly count and a bat survey.
"Future plans include a fungi survey, a family friendly hedgehog trail and a session on the identification of wildflowers and plants. During the autumn we planted spring bulbs and made a pond from a Belfast sink, which will join the log pile, hedgehog home and bug hotel in providing habitats to encourage more wildlife.
"10 of our 12 churches now have Eco Church awards: 1 Gold, 3 Silver and 6 Bronze.
"We would encourage more churches to get involved. You will have great fun, whilst helping the environment and discovering more of the wonders of God’s creation at the same time."