Sustainable Schools

Sustainable Schools pages:

The government has established a policy to encourage UK schools to become more sustainable and has set targets and milestones for schools to achieve by 2020. Eight areas have been identified as key aspects for a National Framework to enable schools to become more sustainable. These areas are:

• Food & Drink
• Energy & Water
• Travel & Traffic
• Purchasing & Waste
• Buildings & Grounds
• Inclusion & Participation
• Local Well-being
• Global Dimension

Many schools will already be implementing many of the aspects covered in the National Framework and the actions involved encompass every detail of school life from purchasing office or play equipment to management strategies and high level economic and environmental assessments.

In addition to the general running of the school operations, the National Framework puts the pupils at the heart of the strategy. It is imperative for schools to educate all pupils about how the world is changing as a result of carbon emissions and encourage them to adopt a sense of responsibility and ownership for sustainability at home as well as in school.

Schools must adopt the recommendations in each of the eight categories and have achieved compliance by 2020 in order to meet the government's sustainability in education targets.

You can find more on sustainable schools here and in our Eco Schools, Energy Saving Schools and School Energy sections