Website – UKSSN Operations Group
📰 Climate Updates 📰
World Weather Attribution
10 years of rapidly disentangling drivers of extreme weather disasters – World Weather Attribution
In a week where scientists say the deadly floods in Valencia were made worse by climate change, World Weather Attribution (WWA) has reported that climate change intensified the ten deadliest extreme weather events since 2004…contributing to the deaths of at least 570,000 people.
The WWA report also says:
- Some of the events…are unprecedented or extremely rare, surpassing the reasonable ability of any government to prepare and design for, representing limits to adaptation.
- Policies that fail to prioritise the most vulnerable people reinforce inequality, and when coupled with poverty make people less able to respond to subsequent shocks and stresses, which are now happening more frequently.
Coop Academy Manchester
Creating a green wall at Co-op Academy | Education Nature Park
The United Nations biodiversity summit, known as COP16, is nearing its end after two weeks in Cali, Colombia. Delegations were expected to address the growing threats to nature in a changing climate. Less than two years ago, the world reached agreement at the COP15 summit in Montreal to stop the human-caused destruction of life on our planet. The deal included targets to protect 30% of the planet for nature by the end of the decade (30×30), reform $500bn (then £410bn) of environmentally damaging subsidies, and begin restoring 30% of the planet’s degraded ecosystems.
While we wait for the outcome have a look at what Coop Academy Manchester have been working on with Education Nature Park. Green walls, no-mow signs, wetland systems, perimeter hedging…and it contributes to science lessons. Inspirational 🦋.
Budget 2024
The first Labour budget since 2009 promised increased investment to transform the UK into a ‘clean energy superpower’. The budget is a hugely complex balancing act and whilst some aspects of it are problematic there was a lot to be optimistic about…perhaps a step in the right direction.
For the UK UK autumn budget 2024: Key climate and energy announcements – Carbon Brief
For Education Teach the Future and Let’s Go Zero statement: Autumn Budget: £1.4bn investment in school rebuilding
🤔 Climate Action Plan – the 4 A’s 🤔
For many schools the 4 C’s of a climate action plan will be familiar (Culture, Campus, Community, Curriculum) plus perhaps Careers and CPD – see NGA for more details. Working in business you might have come across the 4 A’s. The We Mean Business Coalition ask businesses to respond with Ambition, Action, Advocacy and Accountability….the 4 A’s of Climate Leadership. They also share editable Climate Transition Action Plans with guidance and support. A couple of suggestions:
- Ask your suppliers if they are part of the We Mean Business Coalition (or a similar business initiative). If not, why not. Let’s collectively champion businesses that share our values and ambition. businesses that share our values and ambition. businesses that share our values and ambition.
- Consider adopting the 4 C’s as part of your school or Trust Climate Action Plan. Why not use 6 C’s and 4 A’s to help build a more robust action plan.
💰 Funding for Climate Action 💰
Whilst we welcome the additional funding for Education in this week’s budget it is clearly not enough to retrofit the school estate to meet all of the costs of transitioning to net zero. Let’s all hope there is more to come. We are always on the look-out for other sources of funding that might help us along the way. One that may be worth a look:
The Stobart Sustainability Fund | Stobart
Our Stobart Sustainability fund is aimed at supporting community-led sustainability projects and initiatives lead by non-profit organisations, community groups and educational facilities, such as schools and colleges, to help them transform their local community through projects that tackle climate change, reduce carbon emissions or that protect and enhance the environment.
Plus don’t forget the LGZ competition…plenty of time to enter –
Our competitions – Lets Go Zero (14th October to 25th November)
Applications open on 14th October for the Ovo Foundation – Let’s Go Zero Nature Prize. Enter to be one of 25 schools awarded a cash prize of £1,000 or £200 for projects that bring their students closer to nature.
If you are aware of other funding pots that might help achieve our climate action goals let us know or you can post on the website. Good luck?
⚒️ Green Careers Week – 4th to 9th November⚒️
Green Careers Week 2024 – Green Careers Hub
A green career can be any job, role or occupation that contributes to preserving or restoring the environment and our planet. It can be any industry, not just those seen as ‘green.’ Green skills are abilities, attributes, values, attitudes, knowledge, and technical skills needed to adapt services, processes and procedures to support climate change. The site has lots of advice, guidance and resources. GCW is also a great opportunity to engage you suppliers in what they are doing for climate action and linking them more into your school Careers teams.
🎓 CPD: Daybreak 🎓
We all look for fun and innovative ways to bring our teams together. Relationships and connection are key to teamwork and wellbeing. What about dedicating a team meeting to some old-fashioned gameplay….’Daybreak’ is a cooperative boardgame about stopping climate change. It presents a hopeful vision of the near future, where you get to build the mind-blowing technologies and resilient societies we need to save the planet. The box is absolutely stuffed with sustainable components, featuring hundreds of original illustrations by a diverse team of (human) artists from around the world. Daybreak is for 1-4 players and takes 60-90 minutes to play. It is a little pricey but think of it as an investment in CPD and wellbeing 🙂.
🎓 CPD: Sustainability Events 🎓
It is great to see an increase in regional and national events to support schools and Trusts transition to a less harmful operating model. We list and promote events on the website, here are just a few:
- Climate and Nature Action Events in Worcester (22nd November 2024) and Cambridgeshire (3rd February 2025)
- East of England Sustainability in Education Series in Bedfordshire (12th February 2025), Essex (26th March 2025) and Suffolk (tbc)
- ASCL Annual Sustainability Conference, Manchester – 5th June 2025 (ASCL – ASCL Sustainability Conference 2025)
- North-West Sustainability Learning Conference – 26th June 2025
Plus…we have our regular Ops Group online network events, the next one being 21st November 2024 at 4pm where our focus will be on sustainable procurement.
If you are planning an event do let us know and we will share with colleagues in the network.
🥗 Catering: Beef 🥗
Greenwashing and denial won’t solve beef’s enormous climate problems | Project Drawdown
Project Drawdown is a world-leading resource for climate solutions. This week Project Drawdown published a blog on beef, a subject that perhaps best illustrates why climate action is such a ‘wicked’ problem. When talking about beef – or meat-eating more generally – we tread a path through social and cultural issues, environmental concerns, financial and political challenges as well as arguments on the value of technology in finding solutions. We are also talking about the lives and livelihoods of farmers who work to put food on our tables. However, that doesn’t mean we should avoid the subject, it just means we should tread with care and compassion.
Have a read of the article. There is a lot of useful science and messaging to take back into our schools when designing menus and talking about climate action.
⚡ Energy: Layer Up, Power Down⚡
Layer Up, Power Down
The annual Energy Sparks ‘Layer Up Power Down’ day is on Friday 15th November. Last year, on average participating schools saved around 35% on their gas consumption. Layer Up Power Down Day aims to remind staff and students of an important message: heat the person not the planet! Turn heating off or down on the Friday and keep it off all weekend (subject to frost protection settings). Currently almost 10% of school gas use happens at weekends! Energy Sparks provide everything you need on their activity page.
🗑️ Waste: Recycle Your Electricals🗑️
Recycle Your Electricals – WEEE Recycling – Material Focus
We have spent half term clearing out old electrical items from our schools we no longer have a use for. It is rather frightening the volume of equipment we have purchased and no longer need. In today’s world we should all be working to a zero-to-landfill policy for ICT – discarded electricals are one of the fastest-growing sources of waste in the world. ‘Recycle Your Electricals’ is a useful site to find local suppliers that might support your ambition. As a first step consider making ‘zero-to-landfill’ one of your ICT team performance measures.
🎃 Waste: Pumpkins🎃
Millions of tasty pumpkins are thrown away, adding to the 10 million tonnes of food waste the UK produces each year. Time for a change…
Eat it – Eat Your Pumpkin Recipes by HUBBUB – Issuu
Compost it – Composting pumpkins is a great way of recycling them. Make sure you remove all ornaments from the pumpkin before composting. If you don’t have a compost bin or pile, you can simply dig a hole and put the pumpkin in it and cover it back up with soil and let it compost over the winter. Cutting up and smashing the pumpkin into smaller pieces can accelerate composting. Smashing the pumpkins is fun and it’s a great way to get the kids involved.
Next year – simply decorate it instead – Eat Your Pumpkin 2024
And finally…..
Credit to the Carbon Almanac for sharing – Physicist John Holdren, former US Science Advisor, once said, “We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be.”
We have a choice and we can influence the mix. It’s not too late, but we have to act.
Have a great weekend,
Paul, Helen, Julie and Gemma