By Melanie Parr, Climate Action Advisor for Let’s Go Zero in the South East region. (Mel is currently working with a number of local schools including Beaumont, Killigrew and Margaret Wix)
This is the first of Sustainable Schools’ series of blogs on sustainability support for schools responding to the Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy.
The DfE’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy requires ‘all education settings to have nominated a Sustainability Lead and put in place a Climate Action Plan’ by 2025.
For some this will mean that sustainability becomes a focus for the first time this year, for others it may be something your school has been working on for a while. Regardless of where you are on your journey, ‘helping to save the planet’ can feel pretty overwhelming –“Where do we start?” “ What’s a priority?” “ Can we afford to do anything meaningful?” – are all questions I hear on a regular basis.
Thankfully there is a wide variety of incredible organisations, initiatives and resources out there to offer support. But untangling all of these can give even the most passionate of people a headache – if they even have the PPA or spare time to look to begin with!
I’m Mel and I’m one of your local Climate Action Advisors from Let’s Go Zero – and I’m here to help!
Let’s Go Zero
Let’s Go Zero began in 2020 as a national campaign to unite schools in calling on the government for more action and provide support to help them reach zero carbon by 2030. Now, more than 1 in 8 schools are signed up. (Please do join us if you haven’t already.)
Since then, the campaign has grown into an exciting movement with a strong coalition of environmental organisations and a growing number of projects to help achieve their mission. Most exciting I think (as I am one) is their Climate Action Advisor project, which involves 32 advisors spread across England, working directly with schools to provide completely free 1:1 sustainability support.
What’s on Offer
We work with schools to help with everything they need to meet the DfE policy requirements, such as:
- 1:1 support, advice, guides, case studies.
- Establishing Sustainability Leadership
- Carbon footprint calculation
- School Audit and Sustainability Report
- Developing or enhancing your Climate Action Plan
- Signposting to initiatives, schemes, curriculum-linked resources, etc
- Support accessing funding, grants and accreditations
Teamwork makes the DfE policy work
One of the most crucial things we recommend to schools if not in place already, is to establish a Sustainability Team with key stakeholders from around the school and full support from the Senior Leadership Team. A holistic, whole-setting approach within the school will ensure the most impactful and inclusive climate action plan. Sustainability is too big and long-term to have it fall on one member of staff’s shoulders. That’s not good planning for a number of reasons, not least of all their own sanity!
Starting from Success
Many schools across the country are already doing incredible climate action work and are ‘starting from success’ rather than ‘from scratch’. Your advisor will be able to ensure that the great work you’re doing is captured effectively in your school’s Climate Action Plan, and that the actions suggested build on them.
Let’s Get Started!
If you would like to get started, I would love to hear from you – please email me at: melanie.parr@letsgozero.org or visit our website to find out more.
Are you a member of school staff, a governor or on a PTA? To know more about the work of the Sustainable Schools Group in St Albans District, including SustFest Schools Week, please sign up to our newsletter using the form on our Schools page here. We send out twice-termly information, both about teaching materials and making your school more eco-friendly, and hold termly online networking sessions. See our Schools home page for the next event.
The Sustainable St Albans Schools Group webpages are here with lots of useful information. If you are still in need of advice or support, Sustainable Schools will try to link you with an experienced school eco-rep in our District. Use the contact form on our main Sustainable Schools page to reach out to us.
