PROJECT
EVE R GREEN
Status Report Autumn 2023
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Environmental Education Status of 2022-23 Actions - Continue to review and develop the curriculum, identifying the key global and environmental issues that can be delivered in an age-appropriate way.
- Raise awareness of energy use, by making Energy Sparks data easily accessible to students and integrating data into curriculum lessons where appropriate.
Pupils in the Junior School Eco Committee created and delivered class assemblies. Classes had a Sunflower Race – learning how to take care of plants.
Promoted energy conservation through activities like checking lights are turned off, and integrated this information into a Junior School assembly.
- Increase student understanding of the global drive for climate justice and intersection of race, gender and climate change issues. Implemented initiatives like litter picking and ‘Walk to School Week’ to increase awareness of climate justice.
PROJECT
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Environmental Education
Next Actions for 2023-24
- Expand litter-picking activities during Wild Girls. - Continue class assemblies with a focus on environmental topics. - Intensify efforts to reduce food waste. - Continue to embed environmental education across the school, within the existing curriculum, using the Thoughtbox resources.
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Biodiversity and the Natural Environment Status of 2022-23 Actions
- Establish a new garden along Mansel Road, - Fully involve students of all ages via activities using the Merton Air Quality Survey to such as Gardening Club, and outdoor guide us. The Friends of WHS are generously learning sessions on Wimbledon Common raising funds for this project. for Senior School students. Established a new garden along Mansel Road. - Improve biodiversity of the site by reviewing the management of land mowing, use of chemicals and and so on, and investigate a small nature garden project at Nursery Road. Reviewed grounds maintenance contract for biodiversity enhancement and now scoping new contractors.
Bulbs and annual plants in all Gardening Club borders 2022-23. Some herbs and vegetables grown near Hastings. Plants propagated for classrooms.
PROJECT
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Biodiversity and the Natural Environment Next Actions for 2023-24 - Improve biodiversity of the site by reviewing the management of land mowing, use of chemicals and so on, and investigate a small nature garden project at Nursery Road. - Greening indoor spaces. This project aims to increase the number of plants within our indoor spaces, improving our community’s wellbeing and the air quality within the buildings.
- Outdoor learning. Explore and identify opportunities to integrate more outdoor learning into our Senior Curriculum (following the success of Wild Girls in the Junior School).
PROJECT
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Community Action Status of 2022-23 Actions - Work with Junior and Senior School pupils - Work to reduce our reliance on single-use via the Eco Committees to prioritise our areas items, both individually and collectively, of focus, choosing impactful yet achievable focusing on areas like stationery and aims and encouraging new routines which decorations as well as food and drink. focus on caring for our community. Student-led events created reusable fabric A Secondhand Clothes Swap was held, and banners and decorations. this is now a regular fixture in the calendar. - Focus on repair as a means of reducing our Approx 119 garments sold and saved from the carbon footprint, and empowering individuals waste stream. Over £350 raised for WWF. to prolong the life of their belongings. Created an energy saving campaign with Ran a staff Mending Meet-up to help people student-designed posters to be posted in each mend their clothes. This will now be a regular room to encourage everyone to turn off lights fixture in the calendar. when rooms are not in use. PROJECT
EV E R GREEN
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Community Action Next Actions for 2023-24 - Implement a ‘Green Christmas’ initiative. - Embed awareness of the Decorations Policy throughout the school. - Continue the campaign to encourage switching off lights.
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Food and Catering Status of 2022-23 Actions - Reducing meat consumption by limiting the frequency of beef on our school menus. Implemented strategies to limit beef in school menus including supplementing with lentils in some recipes and switching to fish on Fridays.
- Minimise food waste through education and careful management, including surveys to identify dietary preferences (including cultural preferences and flexitarian approaches). Reduced waste through making packed lunches opt-in for all trips and fixtures.
- Food Miles Tracking Encountered challenges in tracking food miles within our current catering contract.
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Food and Catering Next Actions for 2023-24 - Monitor food miles. - Educate about seasonal food. - Conduct surveys to understand dietary preferences. .
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Travel and Transport Status of 2022-23 Actions - Take actions which will improve local air quality, using the priorities identified in the Merton Air Quality Survey (October 2021), such as minimising engine idling and promoting active travel or the use of public transport for students and staff. Conducted a commuting audit during Big Walk & Wheel 2023 and promoted active travel through increased and relocated cycle and scooter parking. - Launching our Parent-School Agreement, to encourage families to opt for sustainable or active travel to and from school. Launched the agreement to encourage sustainable travel. Awaiting 2024 travel survey to assess impact.
- Audit the impact of school travel – use of our minibuses, hire of coaches, and for sport and educational visits further afield. Conducted an audit to assess the carbon impact of school trips. Initial findings suggest a decrease in CO2 emissions following break in travel during the pandemic. 2018-19 - 0.428 tonnes per pupil 2022-23 - 0.262 tonnes per pupil
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Travel and Transport Next actions for 2023-24 - Implement a Trips CO2 Offset Policy. - Continue the commuting audit and include traffic to Nursery Road. - Explore a ride-sharing app trial in the summer term.
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Procurement Status of 2022-23 Actions - Work with our cleaning contractor to ensure we use more sustainable and non-toxic products. In progress. - Audit paper usage, and switch to more sustainable paper wherever practical. Planned for the next academic year.
- Audit and change procurement processes for stationery, to limit deliveries by grouping and consolidating orders. Improved the ordering process to reduce number of deliveries by aggregating orders from multiple departments.
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Procurement Next Actions for 2023-24 - Further improve cleaning practices such as paper towel recycling, chemical usage and use of QR code data sheets. - Continue efforts to switch to sustainable paper.
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Recycling and Waste Management Status of 2022-23 Actions - Launch recycling campaign to ensure we minimise waste to landfill across the site, with clearly labelled bins and waste streams Classroom bins provided in Junior school. Food waste bin provided in Café Sixth. New labelling on all bins across site. - Work with GDST, who are negotiating new school waste contracts for September 2023, to identify our requirements. New contract began Autumn 2023.
- Act on student initiatives (see Strategic Priority 3) to reduce waste in other areas of school life – for instance, stationery and decoration. New Decorations Policy in place, emphasising sustainability when selecting decorations. Storage space is being sought so decorations can be kept and reused.
REFUS E REDUC E REUSE REPAI R RECYC LE
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Recycling and Waste Management Next Actions for 2023-24 - Enhance recycling education on use of correct bins. - Focus on recycling, reusing, and upcycling materials. - Collaborate with new waste and catering contractors.
REFUS E REDUC E REUSE REPAI R RECYC LE
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Water Management Status of 2022-23 Actions - Audit water usage and establish annual targets for a reduction in water consumption. As Project Ex Humilibus is completed, we will have better access to meters and data. Encountered challenges with the current supplier, leading to a supplier change. - Work with GDST, who are negotiating new water contracts for September 2023, to identify our requirements. Successfully established new contracts.
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Water Management Next Actions for 2023-24 - Investigate and implement ways to gather rainwater for gardening, and ensure that new garden areas include drought tolerant planting. - Regularly monitor water meters. - Audit water usage and set targets for reducing water consumption.
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Energy Management Status of 2022-23 Actions - Continue to investigate our higher than expected base-load, and identify practical actions to reduce energy consumption. Despite challenges with data recording, base load has been reduced through careful management. Typical term-time baseload: Winter 2021-22 70kW Autumn 2023 45kW This remains higher than similar schools but a significant reduction.
- Set 12-month reduction targets for gas and electricity. Science based targets would require our emissions from energy to drop by at least 8% pa. Challenges with data collection made this difficult, but new approaches to data analysis should make this possible for 2023-24. - Aims around an engineering audit of plant rooms, monitoring settings for heating and cooling, and a shutdown checklist are replaced with a wider project to install a Building Management System over the coming years. See Next Actions 2023-24 for more details.
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Energy Management Next Actions for 2023-24 - Heating, lighting and building management systems – GDST projects, connected to Section 10 Building & Infrastructure. This will allow us to enhance energy data collection and management systems. - Use energy audit (2022) and new data to develop an energy efficiency action plan
Building Management System (BMS) is our main focus for 23/24 onwards as a phased series of projects to introduce effective building management. This should lead to more efficient use of energy. We are awaiting a proposal for scope and works following a plant room survey, which will be followed by a more detailed engineering survey. Plant rooms will then be prioritised according to age, existing connectivity and feasibility.
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Buildings and Construction Status of 2022-23 Actions - As facilities and plant rooms come to end-of-life and renewal, explore more sustainable methods of heating, cooling and building management. GDST projects are investigating Piper, Lewis and Littlewood House boiler replacements, heating infrastructure feasibility study and a building management system review.
- Investigate further installations of solar panels Part of GDST-wide sustainability project.
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Buildings and Construction Next Actions for 2023-24 - LED lighting replacement project – GDST project for Summer 2024 - Conduct a feasibility and scoping exercise for pool cover installation.
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Progress in Focus: Junior School The Junior School Eco Reps for 2022-23 told us about their year in their own words: Litter picking “Year 2 did it on a Wednesday and we checked all the playgrounds for litter.” “Sometimes we found random stuff like pens –we put them in the pen recycling.” “Sometimes we found full apples that were wasted next year we want to look at school food waste.”
Walk to School Week “We had badges. Every time you walked to school you’d earn points, and once you have got a number of points, you get a badge! It really encouraged the girls to walk to school because everyone wanted the badges, and the class could earn a trophy”
“We did the Golden Padlock – it encourages more people to cycle or scoot. They got a breakfast treat – they were really happy.”
Energy saving “Every Eco meeting, an older year group would go with the younger group and check if the board and lights were off, and the class would earn a point if they were already off.” “I think it helped a lot. We would put a smiley face on the whiteboard if it was off, but a straight face if they weren’t perfect.” “Year 6 kept a record to see if it made a difference to our energy consumption.”
Progress in Focus: Junior School In the summer term, Wimbledon hosted a GDSTwide initiative to promote positive action in the face of climate change. The We Are One event asked pupils to consider the world we live in, the benefits of being at one with nature and how we can all help encourage sustainable living and behaviour change. Girls learnt the value of working together, across the country, as “together we are stronger and our impact can be greater”. The day started, appropriately enough, up on Wimbledon Common, where fun activities in the beautiful and expansive surroundings laid the framework for collaboration and learning.
Back at WHS, visiting speakers from ThoughtBox Education facilitated a challenge for the Year 6 pupils on Changing Climates. Throughout the project, pupils were supported by their teachers and mentors to explore climate action and how to work together on solutions for bright futures. www.gdst.net/news/we-are-one-year-6-pupilscomplete-a-changing-climates-curriculum www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNrhfPZ2GcA
Sustainability: focus on school trips In our school’s commitment to sustainability and reaching net zero CO2 emissions, we have focused on areas where we can take immediate action to see significant reductions in our emissions or mitigate the impact. We have analysed data about school trips for 2018-19 (as a representative pre-pandemic year) and for the most recent academic year, 2022-23. The results are encouraging and reflect a change in the pattern and destination of school trips: • 2018-19: CO2 emissions per pupil 0.43 tonnes/year. • 2023-23: CO2 emissions per pupil 0.26 tonnes/year. (These per student figures are based on Senior School students taking trips.)
In an effort to further reduce our emissions, we’ve developed a new policy approach. Mindful Destination Choices When evaluating proposed residential trips, we now prioritize destinations closer to home. By minimizing air travel distances, we reduce the associated carbon footprint. Alternatives to Air Travel We explore alternative modes of transportation, such as trains or buses, whenever feasible. These options contribute to lower emissions and align with our sustainability goals.
Sustainability: focus on school trips Advances in Sustainability: focus on Introducing In our school’s Carbon commitment Offsetting to sustainability and reaching A New Approach net zero CO2 emissions, we have focused on areas where we can take immediate action to see Starting January 2024, we will introduce an significant reductions in our emissions or mitigate automatic payment for all overseas trips. Families the impact. may opt out if they wish. This initiative will be based WeCO2 on have emissions analysed data per about head. We’ll schooluse trips reliable for 2018-19 online (as a representative tools following UK pre-pandemic Government conversion year) and for factors the to most recent calculate estimated academic emissions. year, 2022-23. The results are encouraging and reflect a change in the pattern and destination of school trips: • 2018-19: CO2 emissions per pupil 0.43 tonnes/year. • 2023-23: CO2 emissions per pupil 0.26 tonnes/year. (These per student figures are based on Senior School students taking trips.)
How In anIteffort Works to further reduce our emissions, we’ve developed a new policy approach. • Payment Structure: Each participant will Mindful contribute Destination an additional Choices amount based on their When trip’s evaluating CO2 emissions. proposed residential trips, we now prioritize destinations closer to home. By minimizing • UN Offsetting Organizations: The school will air travel distances, we reduce the associated carbon donate these funds to recognized UN offsetting footprint. organizations, supporting global nature, Alternatives infrastructure, to Air and Travel health projects. We explore alternative modes of transportation, such • Transparency: Information about the chosen as trains or buses, whenever feasible. These options project will be shared in trip launch letters. contribute to lower emissions and align with our sustainability goals.
Our work on sustainability at WHS is part of a wider picture of tackling climate change across the GDST. You can read more about the GDST Sustainability programme, including reporting on Scope 1 & 2 emissions, at https://www.gdst.net/about-us/sustainability/ GDST is a CarbonNeutral® organisation. Working in partnership with climate impact company Natural Capital Partners, GDST has carefully selected projects to ensure that they align with GDST’s emerging sustainability strategy. Our strategy has been shaped by those UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) most closely related to our ethos and mission: Good health and wellbeing, Quality education, Gender equality, Climate action, Responsible consumption and production. AI Transparency: Microsoft Copilot was used in the production of this report. Narrative updates and data input from steering group members were standardised for grammar and style.
Wimbledon High School, Mansel Road, London SW19 4AB 020 8971 0900 • info@wim.gdst.net • www.wimbledonhigh.gdst.net Head: Ms Fionnuala Kennedy