Purchasing and waste
“By 2020, the government would like all schools to be models of sustainable procurement, using goods and services of high environmental and ethical standards from local sources where practicable, and increasing value for money by reusing, repairing and recycling as many goods as possible.”
This doorway centres on helping children and young people make the connection between the ‘disposable’ society we live in and the effect its resulting mountains of waste is having on the environment.
Top tips for sustainable purchasing and waste
- Involve the whole school in measuring waste and putting together workable ideas for recycling and reusing materials.
- Use CPD to get all staff to ‘buy in’ to sustainability and share the values so that they can best model good sustainability behaviours.
- Get students involved in creating the vision, doing the research and affirming belief in the direction of travel.
- Think about how you might instil a culture of waste reduction through teaching and learning, ie science – waste product management, compost systems, rates of decay.
- Communicate your vision to the wider community and encourage them to share your attitudes and values by producing a waste recycling and green consumer guide.
- Involve staff in building a sustainable procurement policy that seeks to procure goods from ethical, sustainable sources and makes demands of existing school suppliers to reduce the amount of packaging coming into school.
- Seek to procure goods from organisations that share your vision, ie Oxfam, Amnesty International and companies carrying kitemarks such as Fairtrade.
Sustainable schoosl focusing on purchasing and waste
