Climate Action Plans

The Department of Education School is expecting that all schools and academy trusts will have leadership structures and Climate Action Plans in place by 2025 to deliver on their strategy for sustainability and climate action in education read here .

School/Trust Governance and Leadership in climate action

Church schools and Academy Trusts are strongly recommended to plan to have in place the required governance and leadership structures for September 2024 so as to enable the work required to have a Climate Action Plan in place for 2025 as expected by the Department for Education.

Governance

The Governing Board of a school/Directors of an Academy Trust are the key strategic decision-makers for a school and are now expected to be making environmental sustainability an organisational priority of their school or trust strategy. In doing so, environmental considerations will run throughout the organisation’s decision-making and all of their work. The DfE’s expectations for leadership structures and a Climate Action Plan to be in place at the schools by 2025 now provides a definitive timeframe.

The EDBE strongly recommends all governance structures for church schools and Academy Trusts should adopt a suitable Statement of Commitment such as:

The [governing board/academy trust] reaffirm the declaration to take action to reduce year on year emissions and to take all reasonable steps to establish evidence-led planning to aim to a net zero carbon school/estate by 2030 and beyond. In the face of unprecedented challenges, our school/academy is working to future proof the estate, for the benefit of current and prospective communities. Recognising that governance is the engine for change, an annual report on the delivery of objectives in key areas will be prepared and shared as good practice and learning with the Diocesan Board of Education.

The EDBE strongly recommends that each school board/Academy Trust board has a named sustainability Link Governor/Director to lead on strategy and to monitor progress and outcomes and with reference the School Climate Action Plan to be developed by the school/Academy Trust.

The EDBE recommends that sustainability and climate action, and with all other environmental initiatives, should be an agenda item at all relevant Governor / Director / Hub / Local Governing Body meetings, and that minutes from these meetings are copied to the Sustainability Link Governor/Director.

The EDBE recommends that an annual report is prepared which details the school’s/Academy Trust’s progress in meeting sustainability targets and is tabled at a full governing board/directors meeting and then shared with the Diocesan Board of Education.

The NGA has also provided useful guidance regarding greener governance and an excellent resource for school leaders and governors called Environment Sustainability: A Whole School Approach.

Senior Leadership

The importance of the climate emergency necessitates that all church schools (or relevant Academy Trust) should delegate a member of the SLT (or other suitable member of staff) to lead on matters of sustainably at the school (or Academy Trust). Of course, the development and implementation of a Climate Action Plan (which is a ‘live’ document and so will grow and be revised over time) is likely to require the involvement of a wider group of staff (and ideally also including the school business manager and premises manager), with the expectation that the first version will be in place by 2025.

Some schools will have these kinds of structures in place already, particularly where they may have a member of staff who has a passion for the environment, but for other schools this might be a new initiative (or a formalising of something that has been quite informal to date).

EDBE, Local Authorities and local Governance Associations all recognise this is an additional workload for schools and are aiming to offer a range of support, guidance and signposting to assist schools in engaging with this new initiative and preparing a School Climate Action Plan by the DfE’s expectation date of 2025.

Climate Action Plans for Schools

The DfE guidance identifies that schools may choose to have a Climate Action Plan that sits within an individual school setting, or across an Academy Trust, or both.

The DfE expects that a Climate Action Plan should typically cover the following areas:

Decarbonisation: calculating and taking actions to reduce carbon emissions, such as becoming more energy efficient
Adaptation and resilience: g. such as taking actions to reduce the risk of any relevant issues to your setting which may include such issues as flooding, heat loss, overheating, waste management, etc.
Biodiversity: improving biodiversity of flora and fauna on your school site
Climate education and green careers: ensuring teaching staff are trained and feel supported in delivering knowledge-rich and comprehensive teaching about climate change. In this area the DfE have developed a new website page

and these aspects along with the wider actions can be represented in the diagram below. The Church of England has also provided guidance and support particularly in relation to the decarbonisation element of the School’s Climate Action Plan.