Award
St Andrews Erskine Church, Dunfermline
9 November 2007
Congratulations to St Andrews Erskine Church, Dunfermline for achieving an Eco-Congregation Award
The congregation is all very aware of their duty to look after Gods World and are very open to ideas as to how to lessen their negative impact on the world:
In worship the church has had two weekend long Celebrations of Creation. The first was called Noah’s Ark and concentrated on caring for God’s Creatures. The second involved creation/environmental activities. There were activities all day Saturday and a Family Service on the Sunday.
Moving into a brand new church building gave the chance to look at environmental issues within the building and its grounds. Being a new build there are many features of the fabric of the building which are environmentally sound. Currently they:
• Useof low energy bulbs
• Recycle waste and stamps
• Turn down thermostats
• Car share on a Sunday
• Sell homemade goods in our community café
• Us Fair Trade goods in our café
A Parish Eco Awareness Day was been a major effort earlier this year. It was a well publicised event which involved , Real Nappies, Fife ranger Service, Waste Aware Fife, Take a Pride in Fife, Sustainable Communities, Plastic is Fantastic Workshop, Fair Trade and work done by the local school for their Eco School Award.
The aim of the day was to highlight how our personal lifestyles can contribute to global problems and to present some solutions with the overarching theme of Looking after Gods World.
For the future the church is planning a library to contain Christian environmental material. They hope to develop our grounds they to include a wildlife garden. This will be supported by our local Ranger Service and will be a major project for the children. They are also looking into the feasibility of solar panels or a wind turbine to produce our own energy needs.