St Albans is a proud winner of an A Rocha Eco Church Gold Award! 
Read more below, or see all our Eco Church articles here.
“It’s only 1 cup” – said 16 billion people.
Each year 16 billion disposable coffee cups are used worldwide for a matter of minutes, before being thrown away.
Plastic is now in all our lives in one form or another. It gives us sterile, life saving equipment, durable storage options, clothing, seat belts, light weight lunch boxes, conveniently packed foods and chewing gum. (Yes, uggh! Not all gum is made from gum anymore. You’re chewing plastic!!) . But every year some 8 million tons of plastic ends up in our oceans. We’ve all seen the pictures and heard the news items about how plastics are affecting the environment. The problem seems huge and insurmountable.
Indeed, I do not doubt that it needs to be tackled globally at governmental level but you and I can start doing things locally.
My ‘eco-piphany’ (thanks to the Sustainable-ish Club House for this one!) moment was from my son’s primary school project in 2018. His project finished but I went on to compile a list of practical things everyone can have a go at and distributed it to 50 friends and colleagues. 50 people, making 10 changes is 500 actions. Those 50 people each telling 5 more people gives us 2500 actions. You get the picture.
From sea plastics to swifts.
The church was ready for it’s a Rocha Bronze award in November 2020 and this was led by a small team of committed eco-pioneers who put their beliefs around caring for God's creation, the Fifth Mark of Mission, into practice. We have taken our responsibility to look after the environment for the future as part of our ethical commitment to our immediate community and to make our contribution to addressing climate change.
Significant numbers of parishioners are passionate about sustainability and environmental issues and enable this work at church and in their own lives. For many, this is also about their children and what we are leaving them. There is a range of views in the Parish and one important aspect is that we are on this journey together. The ethos we take is one of small steps that together amount to a bigger change. From short monthly suggestions about actions to take at home, and environmental information, where does that discarded plastic bottle end up? to incremental small changes in how we manage the Church and its grounds, allowing a ‘no mow area’ to improve the biodiversity to swift boxes in our tower, to a large programme to install solar panels - we are trying to show how to do something positive when the headlines about global environmental change can be overwhelming.
Since 2020 we have continued our work across all the five key areas of the church covering the A Rocha criteria, being awarded Silver in 2024 and Gold in Spring 2026.
The Scheme covers 5 key areas:
- Worship and Teaching
- Buildings
- Land
- Community and Global
- Lifestyle
Think Global: Act Locally : Resources that have helped us
(this list is for guidance only and in no way implies endorsement by us)
- For toilet twinning: Toilet Twinning - Find your toilet’s other half
- Become a Terracycle drop off point: Terracycle
- Switch to refillable products:
- Recycling for residents of the Borough of Harrow
- Church of England Environment Programme
- A Rocha Eco Church Programme: A Rocha UK
- Climate Stewards, calculate your carbon footprint
- A sustainable life for the imperfectly green - Sustainable(ish)
- Carbon Literacy Project, understanding Carbon costs: The Carbon Literacy Project
- For affordable, planet friendly, joyful parties: The Kids Party Pact or Party Kit Network
- What to buy? What not to buy? Let the Ethical Consumer researchers do all the hard work and read their findings at Ethical Consumer
- Not my trash, but it is my planet: Keep Britain Tidy or Harrow Litter Pickers.
- For advice and information on birds: RSPB
- For advice and information on plants and gardening: RHS
And finally...
Commit to making 10 sustainable switches today - print this PDF and fill in what you will do to cut your carbon footprint, sustain nature, save water and support the environment.