Gold eco award for Orkney Church

A PARISH church in Orkney has become the fifth congregation in the country to gain an Eco-Congregation Scotland Gold Award.

Westray Parish Church had applied for a silver award, but when the Eco-Congregation assessors visited they decided the work being done by the congregation exceeded that standard.

The Gold Award, Eco-Congregation’s most challenging, is awarded to congregations which have developed a long-term commitment to promoting environmental issues as an integral part of their congregational life.

The Westray congregation, on one of the northernmost islands in Orkney, has been involved in Eco-Congregation for over 20 years. They were especially commended by the assessors for the way the church has been leading the 600-strong island community through involvement in island-wide energy projects.

These included installing a communityowned wind turbine, and a project with Lottery and Scottish Government grant funding which worked to identify the nine houses on Westray most severely affected by fuel poverty and energy inefficiency. The project took the households out of fuel poverty by installing ground source heat pumps, double glazing, extra insulation and draft proofing in each home.

Westray Parish Church

The activity of Fair Trade Group, under the Chairmanship of the minister, resulted in Westray being recognised as a Fair Trade island in 2007.

The award assessors were also impressed with the legacy fund that the congregation have made available to other churches in the islands. This fund has allowed other churches to proceed with their own eco work.

The church’s Eco-Congregation co-ordinator, Alasdair McVicar, said: “This should be a source of great pride for the congregation and it’s very fine to have good news during these strange times but we know it’s an ongoing commitment and we welcome that”.

Parish minister, the Rev Iain MacDonald, added: “It’s lovely to have something to celebrate collectively but these awards should never be seen as something to stick on the wall so we can sit back and admire them but as an incentive to us all to maintain the high standards and to build on them”.

Eco-Congregation Scotland was founded in 2001 and became a registered charity in 2010. It is a movement of Scottish church congregations, of all denominations and none, committed to addressing environmental issues through their life and mission.

The gold award recognises that a congregation has met or exceeded Eco-Congregation’s gold standards in spiritual, practical and global living, while also addressing some more general aspects of environmental care.

Among the criteria for the gold award are that eco activities are embedded in the programme of groups within the congregation; that care for creation is embedded in the worship, study and prayer life of the congregation; that individual members are challenged and supported to reduce their own environmental impact; that the church supports biodiversity and wildlife projects in the wider community; and that the congregation is actively engaged in local, national and international campaigns against environmental damage. ¤

This article appears in the September 2020 Issue of Life and Work

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