The parish of Barnoldswick have successfully qualified for an Eco Church Bronze Award for both Holy Trinity Church and the ancient church of St Mary Le Ghyll.
Vicar of the parish, the Revd Sheena McMain, paid tribute to the efforts of everyone associated with the churches, and to the small group who have pushed forward the work necessary to qualify for the award, including churchwarden Lois Green, who has a longstanding passion for environmental issues.
Revd Sheena said: "We hope this will inspire other small local churches to achieve the same.
“It has been a journey of many small steps, all of them very achievable.
The online tool on the Eco Church website makes it really easy to monitor your progress.
“We have been inspired by St Mary's Embsay who achieved Gold Eco award status and are not too far from us, and in recent weeks we met our local Eco Mission Enabler Dave Cherry, whose enthusiasm gave us the final push we needed.
“We are looking forward to building on our achievement in the future with the local community Eco group and our local schools."
Run by A Rocha UK, a Christian charity that looks to equip Christians and churches in the UK to care for the environment, the Eco Church Awards provide a framework to support churches take practical action on caring for God’s earth, and includes a toolkit of resources, an online award survey and more.
The awards are achieved by completing an Eco Award survey, which covers actions taken in five key areas.
These are worship and teaching, buildings and energy, land and nature, community and global engagement, and lifestyle.
To find out more about the Eco Church Awards, please click here.