Website – UKSSN Operations Group
LinkedIn – Schools Sustainability Network Operations Group
“It is not the beauty of the building you should look at; it is the construction of the foundation that will last the test of time”. (David Allan Coe)
🎉 ISBL Sustainability Standards for Schools 🎉
https://www.isbl.org.uk/sustainability-standards
This week the Institute of School Business Leaders (ISBL) published their ‘ISBL Sustainability Standards’, guidance for schools to help ensure climate action and work to improve biodiversity are not treated as secondary considerations but as cornerstones to running a successful school or trust. The Sustainability Standards speak to adopting a whole-school approach, whereby colleagues, children and young people are enabled to live as well as learn about sustainability and climate action. The whole-school approach recognises the dual challenges of transitioning to a way of living that supports a healthy environment and the inherent complexity of working in education. In publishing Sustainability Standards, ISBL is laying a foundation for all schools to build on. 💚
🎓 Greener Schools Index 🎓
Also launched at the 2024 ISBL National Conference was the Greener Schools Index (GSI). The GSI will initially be open in a pilot phase until 28 February 2025. The GSI has been designed as a free-to-use practical aid to help schools and Trusts find strengths and gaps in their climate action. By answering a series of self-assessment questions, organisations receive a report that shows work that is already underway (and should be celebrated) and suggestions for targeted improvement. All schools need a Climate Action Plan by 2025; GSI has been designed to help.
A big thank you to ISBL for championing sustainability and supporting school business colleagues to reduce the environmental harms caused by our schools.
In other news…
- COP29
- DfE Climate in Education snapshot for November
- Food: Hero Recipes
- Clothing: Textiles & Waste
- Talking to Children
- Biodiversity: Education Nature Park
- CPD: Sustainability Events
- Celebrating success: Michael Jones
🌍 COP29 – a very mixed picture🌍
The negotiations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan came to a close on Sunday night (24 November) concluding two weeks of climate talks and days of negotiations over the final outcome document. Key parts of the agreement –
- Climate finance commitments – The central focus of COP29 was climate finance, with developed countries agreeing to triple finance to developing countries to $100 billion a year by 2035. Developing countries were calling for closer to $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance and feel the agreed figures are insufficient for tackling climate impacts.
- Lack of agreement on next steps – Countries failed to reach an agreement on how the outcomes of last year’s ‘global stocktake’, including a key pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, should be taken forward – instead postponing the decision to COP30 next year in Brazil.
- Agreement on carbon markets – Countries have agreed on the final building blocks that set out how carbon markets will operate under the Paris Agreement, making country-to-country trading and a carbon crediting mechanism fully operational. This means all elements of the Paris Agreement have been finalised nearly 10 years after it was signed.
Comment from Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero – Here’s what I learned at Cop29. Rows aside, an unstoppable transition to clean energy is happening | Ed Miliband | The Guardian
📰 DfE Climate in Education Snapshot – November📰
DfE’s Climate in Education Snapshot- November 2024
Contents this month include:
- Further Funding Available For Green Projects
- National Education Nature Park Webinars
- Empowering the Next Generation: November Assembly
- Solutions For The Planet Programmes
- Free Climate Change eBook for Children
- Information you may find useful
- You can subscribe to receive the snapshot here.
🥗 Food: Hero Recipes 🥗
allmanhall Hero Recipe Booklet by allmanhall – Issuu
What we eat, and how that food is produced, affects our health but also the environment. Food needs to be grown and processed, transported, distributed, prepared, consumed, and sometimes disposed of. Each of these steps creates greenhouse gases that trap the sun’s heat and contribute to climate change. About a third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions is linked to food.
Allmanhall has created and shared a series of recipe booklets that meet nutritional standards for schools and are healthy for the planet.
👔Clothing: Textile production and waste👔
The impact of textile production and waste on the environment (infographics) | Topics | European Parliament
Only 1% of used clothes are recycled into new clothes, the rest end up in landfill or are incinerated. Textile production is estimated to be responsible for about 20% of global clean water pollution from dyeing and finishing products. A single laundry load of polyester clothes can discharge 700,000 microplastic fibres that can end up in the food chain. All our buying decisions have an environmental consequence. For schools, planning the tendering of school uniform to limit the damage it causes to the planet is crucial part of a strong climate action plan. Get in touch if you need advice or support.
💚 Children: Project Drawdown 💚
How to talk to kids about climate change | Project Drawdown
Talking to children about climate change is not just about educating them on the science; it is about empowering them to be part of the solution. This blog from Project Drawdown gives helpful advice in how to navigate through what is a complex and difficult conversation.
🦋 Biodiversity: Education Nature Park 🦋
What to do in your Nature Park this autumn | Education Nature Park
Top five things to do in your Nature Park during the autumn season. From mapping your habitats to creating a vision statement, you can get planning and start your Nature Park journey through their curriculum-linked activities. Plus a webinar (4th December at 16.15) to hear from other schools already participating in the Education Nature Park initiative.
📅 CPD: Sustainability Events 📅
It is great to see an increase in regional and national events to support schools and Trusts. We list and promote events on the website, here are just a few:
- Greater Manchester Green Summit – GM Green Summit 2024 – GM Green City (9th December 2024)
- Climate and Nature Action Event in Cambridgeshire (3rd February 2025)
- East of England Sustainability in Education Series in Bedfordshire (12th February 2025), Essex (26th March 2025) and Suffolk (2nd Apil 2025)
- 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 next online UKSSN Ops Group network meeting on 16th January 2025 at 16.00. The link to register is on the website.
And finally…..congratulations to Michael Jones
Michael is an active member of the UKSSN network. At the recent COP29 event Michael was a Silver Award winner for the Climate Change Challenge Award for his work creating a curriculum for the problem of ocean plastics. Last year Michael took his school to the final for the Zayed Sustainability Prize…and won https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-67600606. Michael’s achievements are an illustration of some of the work already being undertaken across the education and gives hope we are moving in the right direction.
If you have a story to tell about climate action get in touch. Celebrating our work is one of the simplest and most effective forms of action we can take.