Edinburgh St Andrew's Church Clermiston
Edinburgh St Andrew’s Clermiston ECO Project
At St Andrew’s Clermiston, we have an active Eco Group who have been involved in several different initiatives over the years. The group is made up of various members of our congregation as well as representation from several of our hall users and from members of our local community. Below are a few of the things that we have been doing to try and help the world we live in.
ECO- Congregation Bronze Award
Eco-Congregation Scotland is a movement of Scottish church congregations of all denominations and none, committed to addressing environmental issues through their life and mission.
We at St Andrew’s Clermiston were delighted to be awarded an Eco Congregation Scotland Bronze Award in recognition of the work and commitment to caring for creation.
This was achieved with the help and support of our Eco group as well as members of the congregation, hall users and members of the wider community. We are thankful to all of those who helped us achieve this award and are looking forward to working towards of Silver award in due course.
Active Travel Bike Shelter Development
A secure covered area for the safe storage of cycles and scooters has been created with security lighting and which is also covered by a newly installed CCTV system. A bench made from recycled milk bottles has also been sited in this area. This will encourage and give confidence to our hall users who wish to travel to the Church by cycle or scooter. This has all been made possible with the generous grants awarded to us from Cycling Scotland.
ECO Garden and Composting Area
With help and support from Earth Calling and with funding from the City of Edinburgh Council West Neighbourhood Partnership, we have been able to develop part of our Church grounds by creating a large composting area and two raised flower beds. We have used this area along with our Guiding and Scouting units who use our halls to grow a selection of plants and vegetables which were then used to make soup that was served at a community event which was open to our congregation and members of the community.
We hope to develop this area over the coming years.
Energy Efficient Building Upgrades
Over the past few years, we at St Andrew’s Clermiston have made several positive changes to our buildings as we try to bring down our Carbon Footprint.
These include replacing many of our windows with energy efficient double-glazed units, replacing our lighting with LED units, removing the use of hand towels and instead fitting thermostatically controlled hand driers in all our toilet facilities. We have also fitted motion sensor detection units in areas of the building to ensure that these areas are only lit when required. Outside all our lighting is energy efficient LED and are either motion activated or have Dawn to Dusk units fitted to ensure energy efficiency whilst maintaining the safety and security of all those who visit our buildings.
Resource Efficient Scotland Building Audit
As part of our Eco project, we had an audit carried out by Resource Efficient Scotland on our buildings to identify opportunities involving aspects like energy, renewables, waste, water, transportation and engagement with building users.
This report identified a number of areas to work on to help us improve cost savings and resource efficiency. It also identified the many positive changes that we had already made prior to this audit being carried out.
We will continue to use this report as we make further changes going forward.
Where possible in all of our ventures we have tried to use local business and trades people and we are very grateful for all the help and support that these individuals and companies have given us.
If you would like any further information on any of the noted topics or would like to get
involved in what we do, please get in touch at clermistonstandrews@gmail.com