Since 2021, Redcar & Cleveland Council has been targeting schools to be greener through an incentives scheme that incorporates league tables and minor prizes to students.
The challenge
The present resource and funding challenge for councils makes it important to utilise low-cost effective interventions through local networks and to help people make changes themselves and with their communities. Schools reflect one part of this where there is the opportunity to realise an environmental education legacy for young people.
The solution
Since 2021, Redcar & Cleveland Council has been targeting schools to be greener through an incentives scheme that incorporates league tables and minor prizes to students.
The project to date has:
- developed, created and shared a “joint energy management plan” for individual schools
- incentivised the schools with an electricity reduction competition with a £1k voucher prize for most improved against target
- carried out site energy monitoring alongside a ‘switch it off’ campaign and spot inspections
- provided interactive presentations developed with student groups with good uptake and engagement
- developed follow-up meetings where students present for 20-30 minutes to the council team and engage in a recycling challenge
- purchased recycled items (pens, pencils, rulers, water bottles, tote bags, wildflower seeds etc) to make promotional goody bags to hand out at the second meetings
- developed a 3rd round of engagement as a student council visit to a recycling facility, due for in late 2022 or early 2023
- enabled the PFI contracts management team to commit to meeting with student groups termly to maintain presence and continuity
- set up quarterly meetings with the facilities management provider to ensure improvements are identified and more importantly actioned
- set up a termly meeting for all stakeholders with the council’s Energy Team and provided energy & waste reports.
The impact
The focus has been on not providing a one-size fits all approach to school decarbonisation but to encourage students to make recommendations to their schools. The league tables are based on school self-reporting and therefore there is an element of trust, whilst ongoing learning and best practice sharing can be facilitated and is part of the project monitoring.
To date, uptake has been better than expected. An emerging initiative is for a commitment to install water dispensers for refillable bottles in each school, whilst a facilities management company has committed £70,000 of L.E.D upgrades for this year.
Lessons learnt
A key element has been the role of awareness raising as the project progresses through the school term. The approach of giving schools a framework and only generic ideas has helped to realise benefits of student engagement and learning in this space.