Members of St Paul's Church in St Albans presented local MP Daisy Cooper with a card of green hearts to show their thanks for her efforts to combat global warming.

It was presented at the Hatfield Road church on Saturday morning and included personal messages from members of the congregation encouraging greater action to fight the climate crisis.

The message inside read: "We appreciate your commitment to Britain’s net zero target. We ask you to continue pressing the government to take action to keep the promises made at climate conference COP26 and go further, faster.

"We want to see real and rapid action to tackle the climate emergency – for the love of God’s world, our families, our homes and the most vulnerable people of the world. With our prayers, St Paul’s Church, St Albans”

Rev Jono Tregale said: “It was great to welcome Daisy Cooper to the church and to thank her for her support for climate change campaigns. We also wanted to encourage her to continue her work and to assure her of our prayers.”

St Paul’s was recently awarded a Silver ‘Eco Church’ Award in recognition of its work towards making the church as ecologically friendly as possible. The award, from Christian environmental charity A Rocha UK, recognised all that church members have done, and are doing, in its church buildings, land and activities.

The Eco Church award took into account the church’s worship and teaching, buildings, land, community and global engagement, and lifestyle.

It noted the environmental features of the church building, including solar panels, roof fittings to admit natural light and a heating control system that regulates the temperature in each room.

The church’s gardens are managed to encourage native wildlife, plants are grown that benefit birds, bees and butterflies, and garden waste is composted. In addition, St Paul’s runs local litter picks, supports the St Albans Sustainability Festival, is a Fairtrade church, and encourages church members to live as sustainably as possible.