St Matthew’s is a member of the Eco Church Community and we continually seek to modify and transform how our church operates and impacts the world in which we live. Some of our sustainable changes and improvements we have made are:

• In September 2023 we installed solar panels on the south facing roof of the church. The 17 solar panels generate nearly 8kWh of electricity which is supplied to the church and its adjacent church hall. The church is now nearly totally self sufficient in electricity on days when the sun is shining. Any surplus electricity generated is fed back to the grid. We were able to install the solar panels thanks to a grant of £10,000 from the Rampion Community Fund and a grant of £2,650 from the Benefact Trust - without these grants the project may not have proceeded and we are so grateful to these grant donors for enabling it to happen.

• In  2022 we replaced all the halogen lighting in our church buildings with LED light fittings – this not only had a big impact on our worship through much better lighting in the church but we were also able to achieve a big reduction in our carbon footprint.

• All our toilets are twinned with toilets in some of the poorest areas in the world, helping to transform lives through the provision of better sanitation.

 Our next project is to improve the energy efficiency of our 100 year old church hall by lowering its ceiling and adding insulation so as meet current building regulations. We are then looking to install air source heat pumps to heat the hall, the church office and a meeting room. We hope to complete this project in 2024.