Sustainability and climate change strategy for education

A key initiative of DfE’s sustainability and climate change strategy for education published in April 2022 is ‘sustainability leadership and climate action plans’.

The strategy states: “By 2025, all education settings will have nominated a sustainability lead and put in place a climate action plan”. This includes early years settings, schools, multi-academy trusts, colleges, and universities.

Sustainability leadership could be a group of people or an individual responsible for the development and implementation of a climate action plan. A climate action plan is a detailed plan to enable your education setting, or trust, to progress or commence sustainability initiatives.

Leaders and governors should support and drive their sustainable activity, they should:

• Provide the authority and support to drive and embed culture change

• Ensure climate change and sustainability feature on the agenda at key meetings
• Be responsible for succession planning, so that commitment to sustainability endures in the setting.

From December 2023, the Department for Education will begin to roll out a programme of further support for the education sector, with access to a sustainability leadership digital hub which will signpost to training, guidance and support and a network of local experts and peer to peer support to assist in establishing a sustainability leadership structure and develop and implement an action plan.