Why Schools Need to Act on Climate Change Now

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The climate crisis is not disappearing anytime soon. Scientists declared 2023 as the hottest year on record, with EU analysis showing that 2023 was 0.1°C away from the warming limit of 1.5°C set by the Paris Agreement. The long-term implications of a 1.5°C warming effect could place humanity on the brink of survivability.

While the UK has been relatively sheltered from the worst effects of climate change related events, millions across Europe have experienced extreme weather such as temperatures in Sardinia, Italy reaching 47°C. It may seem like a problem for other countries, but we all remember when the UK reached the 40°C mark in 2022.

The problem is here and it will continue to grow unless we act now. Schools in the UK are at major risk of flooding, with around 15,000 at risk by 2050 and half already in danger.

The Department for Education has released its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy (the DfE Strategy) in 2021, recognising that schools in the UK have a key part to play in improving their operations and estates to reach net zero, especially on account of the amount of land schools occupy. Estimates say that the amount of excess land schools’ estates have is equivalent to the size of central London. Going even further, schools are responsible to equip current and future students with the skills and literacy for carrying the sustainability agenda forwards. Every school matters in this endeavour for Net Zero.

The DfE Strategy outlines key action areas to mobilise the education sector in the UK. Highlighted below are the key points, our interpretation of the DfE Strategy, and what things your trust should consider in light of it:

The DfE Sustainability & Climate Change Strategy

1. Climate Education

The focus of this section is about the inclusion of more climate change related education into the curriculum and developing the needed skills in students to participate in the green industrial revolution. Some of the main objectives of the DfE here are to:

Provide capacity building for staff at schools to deliver curriculum enhancements, such as through CPD.
Provide education opportunities in the natural environment for students, such as through:
- Teaching about healthy eating and sustainable practice.
- Using school net zero retrofitting projects to teach students about energy efficiency, circular economy, climate resilience and green career paths.
- Utilising the National Education Nature Park, which is a nationwide virtual park and digital platform for information sharing made up of all school estates in the UK.

Green Skills and Careers

Broadly speaking, this is focused on helping students to join the green industrial revolution through:

Provision of skills development like T-Levels targeted to green careers, scholarships, and career guidance.
Developing of current workforce skills development opportunities in areas such as heat pumps, zero emissions vehicles, and carbon capture.
Aligning apprenticeships to Net Zero objectives.

It is also outlined that retrofitting of the education estate in action area 3 below can serve as education opportunities for students in green sector careers.

Education Estate and Digital Infrastructure

This represents a very ambitious goal of the DfE Strategy:

All DfE new builds of schools will be net zero in operation and future proofed for temperature rises and flood risks.

One of the desired effects of this is that through initiatives to improve the education estate, best practice and research can be developed and shared to enable a best value-for-money approach. While the DfE will be developing all new builds to be net zero in operation, efficiency and climate resilience improvements will be explored for implementation on existing infrastructure, such as trialing of energy monitoring systems by the DfE and driving greater water-use and heating efficiency.

A specific area where a cultural and operational change is outlined by the DfE is that by 2025, they’ll have supported schools in implementing Climate Action Plans which use setting-level data to inform action. This is an area that school leaders need to pay attention to, especially in action area 4 too.

Operations and Supply Chains

From a procurement and governance perspective, this area is where many interventions for schools are outlined by the DfE. The main levers that the DfE want to use are:

To require all schools to have sustainability leads and a Climate Action Plan by 2025.
To support schools in procuring from businesses that have Net Zero by 2050 goals and from ethical procurement frameworks.
To promote local sourcing of food and transparent school food reporting, with a view to make this reporting mandatory.
To move schools towards reusable products and away from single-use products, as well as driving circular economy initiatives in uniforms and cutlery for example.

Given that 80% of a typical company’s emissions are from the supply chain, procurement due diligence represents a major area of needed improvement for the education sector too. Coordinated leadership through sustainability leads who own their climate action plans, supported by senior management, is a non-negotiable for effective impact.

Bringing It All Together and Take-Away Points

With the above 4 action areas in mind, one good way of understanding the DfE’s Strategy is that it wants schools to develop cultures that value sustainability, operationalise it, and ultimately propel students into the workforce with the skills needed to fight climate change. This stairstep model is a way of visualising that, with each taller step building on the previous.

Developing cultures that value sustainability:

Some of the main areas for consideration for your school in this topic are:

What training or capacity building can be provided to staff to drive better environmental practices (e.g: carbon literacy training)?
Could your school benefit from external support on developing a Climate Action Plan and sustainability strategy?
- This is an area that Value Match can support in through its Sustainable Schools Assessment.
Who can your school nominate to be a sustainability lead and how can senior management best support them to carry out the sustainability agenda?

Operationalising sustainability

The DfE Strategy sets out many ways sustainability can be operationalised, with a great degree of focus on procurement and facilities improvements. These can be some key areas to consider:

Would your school benefit from a carbon footprint calculation to identify where reductions can be achieved?
Could your school implement energy and waste monitoring systems to inform reduction initiatives while also using it as education and careers opportunities for students?
Could the promotion of reusable practices in your school’s procurement be an option?

All the above are areas that Value Match can support with.

Propelling students into the workforce with skills to fight climate change:

Finally, with a culture that values and operationalises sustainability, a school’s operations and facilities should service as major tools in teaching and passing down skills in environmental protection for the Net Zero agenda. Not only that, as more schools develop in-house capabilities to drive their own sustainability initiatives, more job opportunities in green industries will open up for students entering the workforce and thus drive green economic growth. Some questions worth asking are:

Can your school’s procurement relationships with suppliers be used to provide apprenticeship or employment opportunities for students?
What kind of social & environmental benefit objectives are important to your school and how can these be delivered through procurements, curriculum, and facilities improvements?
How can your students be brought into more involvement and active participation in delivering these positive impacts (e.g: student parliament/governments that engage with school management)?

This is an area that Value Match have strong experience in delivering, providing local apprenticeship and careers development opportunities to students to help grow the next generation, and are currently helping schools carry this out.

If you would like to get in touch to ask more questions around the DfE’s Strategy and what Value Match can do to support your journey on it, please get in touch at euan.chan@value-match.co.uk.