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Taking action to support our planet can start at any age
We don’t usually think of early years children and settings in connection to ‘climate action’ – raising awareness about climate change and doing things to support the health of our planet.
But, as Greta Thunberg once said, ‘You’re never too small to make a difference’.
They may not understand the science behind climate change or the benefits of sustainable action, but early years children have the ideal qualities and enthusiasm to act…
- Early years children are inherently curious about nature and the environment. They want to explore and understand what is the weather and how it impacts our lives.
- They are also naturally caring. They like to help others, show their love freely and fix things that might be broken.
- And finally, they are not scared to use their voice and express their opinions, which makes them perfect climate ambassadors!
Children will inherit the planet, so it’s important that we all take action now to support it whilst empowering them to become tomorrow’s climate leaders.
What is the DfE’s stance on sustainability in early years settings?
From 2025, the Department for Education expects all education settings in England – including nurseries – to have nominated a sustainability lead and put in place a climate action plan, detailing how they’re improving their provision and efforts across 4 areas:
- Decarbonisation – taking action to understand and reduce the carbon emissions associated with running your nursery.
- Climate education and green skills/careers – delivering learning that connects to climate change and sustainability, whilst ensuring that staff feel supported and confident to offer this.
- Environmental improvement and biodiversity – supporting the animal and plant life that exists on your site, contributing to the local eco-system and its ability to capture harmful carbon emissions from the atmosphere.
- Climate adaptation and resilience – taking action to prepare your site for the possible impacts of climate change, from flooding to over-heating.
This is a challenging ask and has prompted some anxiety within nurseries.
However, there is support and resources out there to help you on your sustainability journey. And the positive impacts that placing some focus on sustainability can have – on children and the planet – are worth the efforts…
What are the benefits of covering climate change and sustainability in early years settings?
Supporting the environment
…Obviously!
From delivering eco-projects that children can engage with (such as planting or recycling), to adapting your operations (such as switching to a green energy provider), to tweaking your daily routines (such as having meat free days each week), nurseries can make brilliant positive environmental impacts. This will reduce your emissions and support biodiversity.
Many of the larger nursery chains are now focusing on environmental performance and actually have specific Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) requirements. They have to submit carbon emissions data with the aim of developing their understanding and driving reduction.
Eco-action made easy
Being more sustainable and eco-friendly can be challenging. It requires self-reflection and adaptation. In many cases, we have developed behaviours and routines that aren’t eco-friendly and these need to change (though the change in most cases is minimal and achievable!).
Developing positive eco-behaviours and attitudes at a young age makes it second-nature and a manageable part of daily life. Education on climate change and action from a young age can create a generation that is set for sustainability and can drive systemic change.
Creating tomorrow’s climate leaders
Early years is the perfect time to nurture children’s curiosity, build their knowledge and empower them to use their voices. This will benefit them in many ways, with one, in particular, being future employment.
‘Green careers’ are jobs that contribute to preserving or restoring the environment. According to the World Economic Forum, the demand for green skills is outpacing the supply of workers with those skills, with a 22.4% increase in job postings requiring green skills compared to a 12.3% increase in talent with those skills.
Traditionally, we might think of a solar panel installer or developer of electric vehicles as a ‘green career’, but in fact, many industries are looking to adapt their approaches to be more sustainable. In the future, many careers will be green careers.
Combatting eco-anxiety early
‘Eco-anxiety’ is defined as “worry about current and future harm to the environment caused by human activity and climate change.” It’s an increasing factor in younger generations, with a recent survey suggesting that nearly 60% of 16-25-year-olds feel very or extremely worried about climate change.
Engaging young people in climate action, and showing and celebrating the positive change that results from this, can demonstrate to young people that they have agency and can make a difference. It also shows that you and other adults care – a commonly voiced fear amongst young people is the (mis)conception that adults aren’t taking climate change seriously and acting accordingly.
Reducing your costs by reducing emissions
It’s a fact that many sustainable actions can be cost-effective too.
For example, reducing your energy usage places less demand on power stations to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity. Less energy usage also means lower bills! This applies in many areas, from buying second hand where possible to increasing plant-based eating (veggies are way cheaper than meat!).
6 steps to help you on your sustainability journey
Now you’re sold on sustainability, how can you hit the ground running?
- Deliver Eco-Schools Early Years!
Eco-Schools: Early Years is the first education programme in England, designed specifically for early years settings, that covers climate change and sustainability holistically.
The programme provides a simple framework and set of resources that enables you to empower your children and green your curriculum. It helps you to understand which elements of your nursery produce carbon emissions, areas where you can be more sustainable and opportunities for quick eco-wins.
To ensure the programme works for nurseries, the Eco-Schools Team collaborated with the Bright Horizons, Storal, and Childbase Partnership chains. We also enlisted the expertise of Early Sustainability expert, Dr. Diane Boyd. Their insight has helped us to create a framework and set of resources that will help nurseries to become greener and cleaner places for everyone who visits.
The programme and our themes align perfectly with England’s Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and it’s a great way to develop the green skills of staff and children alike.
Nurseries which take part in the programme use less energy, cut their carbon, reduce their waste, save money and make their sites greener and healthier places.
The programme doesn’t require staff to be an environmental expert, but instead breaks down sustainable action into bitesize and accessible chunks and a straightforward flow of activity.
- Appoint a sustainability leadership team
No matter how amazing or passionate they might be, one person alone cannot lead your school to net zero. We suggest enlisting…
- Your business manager
- Site or operations manager
- Canteen manager
- Curriculum lead
This group can make changes in key carbon-emitting areas or influence policy and behaviour across your nursery. Meet regularly, allocate resources and plan holistically.
If you’re part of a chain, you may have a group sustainability lead or be able to collaborate across settings, sharing resources and knowledge.
- Become carbon literate
Don’t worry, you don’t need to be an expert!
But a basic understanding of climate change, carbon emissions and sustainability will give you a good grounding to start taking action. This is called ‘carbon literacy’.
If you have the resource, staff training might be a good option. The Carbon Literacy Project is just one of the great organisations out there that are producing accessible and clear carbon literacy training courses. If resource isn’t available, a simple Google Search for ‘the basics of carbon literacy’ will provide lots of useful resources that can be shared with colleagues.
- Count Your Carbon
Understanding how big your carbon footprint is and your key emitting areas will help you to prioritise action and set milestones and timelines.
The ‘Count Your Carbon’ website, by Eco-Schools, is the nation’s first free carbon footprint calculator designed specifically for nurseries and schools. It supports educational settings to calculate, understand, reduce and track carbon emissions. It also provides resources to help you deliver targeted carbon-reducing activity that can slot into the Decarbonisation section of your Climate Action Plan.
- Make sustainability a core part of nursery life
Sustainability doesn’t need to be considered as an add-on.
You can make it second nature across practices and behaviours with some practical adjustments and simple additions.
- Add sustainability to your public facing values and mission
- Include it as a regular agenda point in all staff meetings
- Make sustainability a factor when choosing new suppliers – are they eco-friendly?
- Switch to a green bank and pension provider
- Make it a core element of public facing communication, from your newsletters to parent update apps
- Allocate time and resource to your ‘sustainability squad’
- Make sustainability visible – from clearly labelled recycling bins to traffic light systems on lights and devices
- Celebrate your actions!
It’s important to approach climate change and sustainability with a proactive and positive mindset. This models the right attitude to peers, children and families and inspires further action and support.
When you deliver sustainable success, shout about it!
- Discuss it in staff meetings and activities with children
- Add it to your newsletter and website updates
- Post on social media
Make the world know that you and your pupils are proud of your actions and soon, everyone else will be too.
Key takeaways
- Taking responsibility and action to support our planet can start in early years. Developing positive eco-behaviours at a young age makes it second-nature and a manageable part of daily life.
- Enabling young people to make positive environmental impacts at a young age, and showing them that adults care and are acting, can support with managing eco-anxiety as they get older.
- The Department for Education now expect early years settings to have a dedicated sustainability lead and a Climate Action Plan, detailing how they’re improving their provision and efforts across 4 areas: decarbonisation, climate education and green skills/careers, environmental improvement and biodiversity and climate adaptation and resilience.
- Eco-Schools Early Years is the first education programme designed specifically for early years settings that covers climate change and sustainability holistically. It provides a framework for nursery management and early years practitioners to deliver environmental learning in a way that connects to the Early Years Foundation Stage framework.
Critical considerations
- How can we integrate climate change and sustainability into our existing curriculum?
- Who is best placed to lead your setting’s sustainability journey?
- How can we benchmark our current eco-status and carbon emissions?
Explainer
- Climate change – the long-term shifts in Earth’s typical weather patterns, including temperature and rainfall, over many years. Our planet is getting warmer, which affects weather globally. This warming is happening because of human activities like burning fossil fuels, which release gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.
- Sustainability – sustainability means taking care of the Earth so that it stays healthy and provides for everyone, now and in the future. This includes using resources wisely, like water and energy, consuming less, and protecting animals, plants, and the environment so they can thrive.
- Carbon footprint and decarbonisation – the total amount of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, released (or ‘emitted) into the air as a result of our activities. These gases trap heat, increasing climate change. ‘Decarbonisation’ is the considered act of understanding and reducing our carbon emissions.
Further reading
- https://www.eco-schools.org.uk/early-years/
- countyourcarbon.org
- Sustainability Matters in Early Education – Boyd, King, Mann and Neame (2022)
- Sustainability leadership and climate action plans in education – The Department for Education’s sustainability leadership and climate action plans initiative.
- Climate change: Young people very worried – survey
This podcast episode & article is sponsored by
Keep Britain Tidy is a leading independent environmental charity that works to inspire, educate and enable everyone in this country to value the environment on their doorstep. Keep Britain Tidy includes the programmes Eco-Schools, Eco-Schools: Early Years, the Green Flag Award for parks and green spaces and the Blue Flag/Seaside Awards for beaches, as well as annual campaigns.
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