St Luke’s Anglican Church, Ekibin celebrates environmental awards
Local
St Luke’s Anglican Church, Ekibin recently received two prestigious Five Leaf Eco-Awards for their climate and environmental action commitments
St Luke’s Anglican Church, Ekibin recently received the Five Leaf Eco-Awards Basic Certificate and Eco Worship Awards acknowledging the many environmentally conscious actions the church has taken.
The Five Leaf Eco-Awards are an ecumenical environmental change initiative for Australian churches and religious organisations founded in 2008 to assist, inspire and reward churches for environmental action.
For Alison Lampe from St Luke’s Sustainability and Environmental Governance (SEG) group, the awards were enthusiastically received by the church as a strong recognition of the environmental work being conducted.
“It has been very fulfilling to play a role in establishing the SEG group in our parish and we are delighted to be awarded the ecumenical Five Leaf Eco-Awards Basic Certificate,” Ms Lampe said.
“Seeing initiatives being supported by our congregation is very rewarding; small efforts by many can lead to meaningful change.
“Our group aims to continue our focus on SEG and is enthusiastic about developing further initiatives.”
The awards, which operate nationally and across denominations, are non-competitive, with churches completing tasks from a list of flexible criteria to earn each certificate.
There are currently seven awards of varying difficulty.
With a wide range of environmentally conscious initiatives undertaken by St Luke’s, such as establishing a sustainability and environmental group, completing an energy audit, facilitating quarterly sustainability and environmental discussion groups and hosting an environmental film night, the Five Leaf Eco-Awards acknowledge and celebrate the parish’s hard work in this space.
Other recent environmentally conscious actions the church has undertaken include a Containers for Change initiative to raise funds for a bike rack on the church grounds, recycling and energy efficiency initiatives, regular inclusion of environmental articles in their church news and participation in Clean Up Australia Day and the Season of Creation.
St Luke’s parish priest The Rev’d Dr Timothy Nicholson said the church was deeply encouraged by the awards, and keen to continue their commitment to care for God’s Creation.
The church is currently undertaking a redevelopment, and is looking forward to installing solar panels and a bike rack on their new buildings, and potentially investing in an electric vehicle as the next parish car.
Louise Scott from Our Lady Queen of Apostles Catholic Church in Stafford (who received their Five Leaf Eco-Awards in September 2022) visited St Luke’s to present the Ekibin church with their award because prior Five Leaf Eco-Awards recipients, where possible, present awards to the following year’s winners.
“It’s wonderful to see what another church has done, and to be able to share our story so that both communities can aim higher and work towards the next awards in the program,” Ms Scott said.
Editor’s note: Find out more or apply for an award on behalf of your church by visiting the Five Leaf Eco-Awards website.
Jump to next article
