How Clitheroe URC won the highest award for care of creation

This year, Clitheroe United Reformed Church became the fourth church in the URC and the 35th in all England and Wales to win the Eco Church Gold Award.

Its journey started back in 2007, when the church decided to become ‘a street-level church’, removing the old pulpit and pews and improving accessibility, to make Clitheroe URC a more useful space for its community. The renovation allowed the church to start reducing its carbon footprint, and that work has continued ever since, with grants from Lancashire Environmental Fund. The building has been reroofed, carpeted and double-glazed (triple-glazed in places). By 2022 the church’s electricity usage was 29% less than in 2018.

The Revd Michele Jarmany, the minister of Clitheroe from 2009 to 2023, made the environment a central theme of worship. Harvest festival, for example, includes judging a sunflower-growing competition. Seeds from the flowers feed birds over the winter….

Stephen Tomkins is editor of Reform

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This is an extract from an article published in the December 2023/January 2024 edition of Reform

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