Celebrating the tremendous progress made towards Eco Diocese Silver Award

We are not there yet on all the criteria which are extremely rigorous and cover  a wide range of aspects of life in the CofE Birmingham including: Eco church awards; working with other dioceses; the diocesan office building; working with other faith groups and denominations; campaigning on environmental issues; action plans for net zero carbon for church schools & churches; training and awareness raising; as well as celebrating environmental initiatives.

Most significant is the huge achievement that out of the 179 churches in the CofE Birmingham:

Thirty-seven have the Bronze Eco church Award; seventeen the Silver Eco church Award; and one church has a Gold Eco church Award.  All these churches are to be congratulated on their achievement which has been supported by the network of Parish Environmental Contacts and the Deanery Environmental Champions.  This number of awards is sufficient for the move to Silver Eco Diocese, we just need to work on the other criteria. 

We are well placed to demonstrate how the diocese has a long-established history of working together to address climate change with our Link Diocese, Malawi.  Recently supporting with funding to meet the immediate need following Cyclone Freddy and sending annual container lorries filled with material to meet specific identified needs. 

Birmingham has a long track record of working with other diocese on around Divestment and Net Zero motions to General Synod. This started in 2015 when we supported a motion on divestment brought to General Synod by Oxford Diocese.

Last year the CofE Birmingham took the courageous step to move to offices which aligned with Net Zero Carbon. This has meant that the Birmingham Diocesan Office building meets the Silver Criteria.

Other areas such as supporting schools to move to Net Zero Carbon are more difficult but we are taking action as funding and opportunities become available by appointing a Net Zero Carbon Schools Officer.

A big thank to all of you who have played your part to get us to this point and for those who are working to move us forward to achieve Silver Diocese.  This is valuable work to get us to Net Zero Carbon by 2030!