Sustainability of your estate

Improving sustainability and managing energy and water use.

Your estate can help provide a better environment for future generations by:

  • enhancing biodiversity
  • improving air quality
  • increasing access to and connection with nature

Taking a whole-school approach to climate change supports carbon reduction and nature recovery. It can also help engage young people in climate adaptation and mitigation.

The sustainability support for education hub can help your school start or continue a sustainability journey. The hub offers advice tailored to the size of your school. It helps you track your progress. Look at your estate and assess how effectively land and buildings are used and how they contribute to sustainable and resilient outcomes.

Good estate management should help you identify opportunities to make better use of your estate by:

  • enhancing the natural environment with nature-based solutions
  • allowing local community groups, schools or colleges to use available indoor or outdoor spaces – initiatives such as The Linking Network can help with building connections and strengthening communities
  • utilising roof space or unused land for renewable energy sources

Using your grounds and buildings more effectively can help your school:

  • improve its sustainability
  • build community connections
  • provide an enhanced learning experience beyond the classroom

Climate action plans

By 2025, all education settings are expected to have a:

  • climate action plan
  • nominated sustainability lead

Climate action plans help encourage action and build climate resilience in your estate and community.

Your estate vision, estate strategy and asset management plan must take account of any relevant actions or projects in the school’s climate action plan. Your climate action plan and strategic estate documents should work together as part of your strategic estate management plan.

There is a range of support available, including:

Refer to further guidance on climate action plans and sustainability leadership.

Energy

Reducing your energy usage and increasing energy efficiency are effective ways to save money. They lower your school’s carbon footprint and promote sustainability by helping to conserve finite resources.

Understand your energy usage

Knowing how much energy you use and what factors are affecting consumption helps you target energy reduction activities and evaluate their effectiveness.

Smart meters and energy management systems can help reduce energy usage and provide learning opportunities for data analysis to understand user behaviour.

There are a range of options for improving energy efficiency, from everyday behavioural changes to more complex interventions. You should consider what is most appropriate for your school, depending on the school’s estate, circumstances and needs.

Refer to the guidance improve the energy efficiency of your school estate to help you.

Tips to reduce energy and water use in schools has further information.

Water

Water is an important resource. Schools should implement sustainable water management practices, which help conserve water, minimise waste and potentially save money.

To minimise water used in your school, you should create a water management plan that:

  • defines roles and responsibilities
  • establishes reasonable reduction targets for water consumption
  • includes a strategy for continuous monitoring

Understand your water usage

It is important to understand your school’s water consumption, including where water is being used. This could be done using bills and observing usage patterns and behaviours. School with sub-meters can use them to monitor water usage in different areas of the site.

Reduce your water usage

You should complete an assessment to identify any issues and potential efficiency measures, which may include:

  • repairing leaks
  • installing low flow taps
  • upgrading toilets and urinals to have lower flush volumes
  • utilising rainwater by installing water butts, which can be used for irrigation when required

You can engage learners and staff on the importance of conserving water by encouraging them to get involved with creating and implementing your water management plan. Resources on the sustainability support for education hub can help with this.

Managing surface water

Your water management plan should consider water drainage and the risk of flooding. This must include external grounds, noting any impermeable surfaces.

Permeable surfaces on your estate can help minimise flooding, save money by reducing surface water charges and improve soil health.

It is best to use nature-based solutions, where possible, to prevent pollutants from entering the water environment, for example, raingardens and ponds, wetland areas and swales.

Improving the energy efficiency of your school estate contains further advice and ideas for managing water consumption.

Carbon

Schools should minimise their carbon footprint to reduce their environmental impact. As part of your climate action plan, you should develop a carbon policy to reduce your school’s carbon emissions. This can include:

  • carbon literacy training, which can increase awareness about climate change and the environment
  • carbon counting to understand your estate’s emissions and which actions could reduce them – this is a good opportunity to get learners involved

Resources on the sustainability support for education hub can help with this.

Embodied carbon

You should consider embodied carbon when carrying out maintenance and improvement projects. Embodied carbon is the amount of carbon dioxide released in the process of something being made.

You can reduce embodied carbon by:

  • prioritising repair and replacement
  • choosing materials and products with longer life expectancy, even if they have slightly higher cost or embodied carbon than options with a shorter lifespan
  • identifying and recording the embodied carbon of new building and landscape materials used

Materials and resources

When carrying out works or making changes to your estate, you should consider the products and materials being used. Your project planning should include consideration of whole-life issues.

You should:

  • make sure that materials are durable and easy to clean and maintain
  • choose products that can be reused and repaired, for example, replacing individual components such as table tops or legs rather than a whole piece of furniture
  • consider whether maintenance or repair of existing materials would be appropriate to extend its usable life

You should ensure that the materials used are safe, responsibly sourced and effective, for example:

  • use materials most suited to the task
  • avoid or minimise the use of materials that contain or release harmful chemicals
  • choose paints and finishes that are easy to clean and will last
  • use materials from sustainable sources
  • avoid composite materials that cannot be easily repaired or separated for recycling.

In your school grounds, natural materials can help improve water drainage, reduce overheating and create opportunities for nature to thrive. Consider:

  • prioritising natural materials, such as mulch or wood chips in natural areas or, for play and high trafficked areas, grass mat safety surfacing
  • spreading fallen leaves directly on to planting beds to create a natural compost and weed suppressant
  • avoiding using chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides

Further information can be found in:

You should think about how products and materials will be handled at the end of their life and identify possible waste, reuse or recycling routes. Some products can be returned to the manufacturer, or there may be an established route for disposal or waste management. Further information is available in the waste section.

To get learners involved and develop their understanding of sustainable materials, refer to resources such as the STEM learning - building materials pack.

Natural environment

Implementing nature-based solutions in schools provides educational, environmental, and social value by creating learning opportunities and promoting environmental stewardship among learners and the community.

The National Education Nature Park provides advice and guidance on how to improve biodiversity in your school. For example, in getting to know your outdoor space you will identify your school’s habitats, which will help you create your own biodiversity priorities to align with local nature recovery network strategies.

Increasing biodiversity and access to the natural environment has been shown to have a positive impact on pupil behaviour, achievement and wellbeing.

You can encourage nature recovery and achieve a more sustainable natural environment by:

  • planting trees - plant sustainably sourced and labelled, native tree species using tree hydration bags and products (such as tree guards) that are biodegradable
  • practising nature-friendly maintenance - allow grassed areas to grow long, or use a flowering lawn mix. A good target is to set aside 15 to 20% of existing grassland not used for sports pitches for this purpose
  • opting for natural fencing - if you are installing or replacing a fence (where a secure boundary is not required), a nature-based solution, such as a double-staggered hedge around a central fence, or pre-grown fences with climbing plants, could be a good alternative
  • introducing wildlife habitats - provide rainwater planters and rain gardens connected to rainwater downpipes - these planted areas absorb more rainwater, offer access to nature and reduce flood risk.
  • increasing wildlife - install ‘bug hotels’, log piles and bird and bat boxes. As a target, you could aim for one bird or bat box per building or existing tree within the school grounds

Waste

Waste management is a key element of sustainability as it can:

  • reduce resource consumption
  • minimise pollution
  • mitigate habitat destruction
  • encourage environmental responsibility

Having a waste management plan in place helps to:

  • minimise the amount of waste that gets sent to landfill
  • promote environmental responsibility to learners and staff
  • reduce costs to your school

Operational waste

For operational waste, you should follow the waste hierarchy principles for your waste management plan. The waste hierarchy ranks waste management options, prioritising what is best for the environment.

As part of good waste management, you should consider:

  • how much waste the school generates
  • how and where the waste is managed
  • separating different types of waste
  • creating green waste compost areas for compostable waste so you can compost natural material on site and reduce the school’s carbon footprint
  • putting leaf waste on top of planting beds to compost over winter, reducing the need for waste to be removed from the grounds

Sustainability support for education has more resources on waste reduction.

Health and wellbeing

Sustainable schools create better, healthier learning environments. They improve productivity and attendance and support staff and pupil wellbeing.

Schools must manage the temperature of their buildings, maintain good air quality and acoustics performance, and provide access to safe drinking water. As average temperatures increase, schools need to consider how they will manage their responsibilities and adapt their estate.

Use of school grounds can benefit the health and wellbeing of pupils and staff. School grounds can offer opportunities for enhanced teaching and learning, informal exercise and other activities to engage learners. The natural environment section contains more information.

Refer to the health and safety of your estate section for more information about keeping school buildings and land safe.