Climate Action Toolkit
Our innovative Climate Action Toolkit supports secondary school students, and their teachers, to successfully engage and collaborate with the whole-school community on climate action.
Data gathered through the Toolkit can be analysed on a regional or national level by bringing together findings from individual schools. These tailored insights can support councils, and others, in their effort to engage with young people on Net Zero strategies.
Climate Action Toolkit in schools
Schools across the UK are planning and delivering a wide range of climate-friendly steps, such as reducing waste, making buildings more efficient, or encouraging greener travel.
Success in this area means having the support of the whole school community. Students – and staff – have lots of different views, and there will be different activities and approaches that can help motivate them. It is therefore important to have a clear picture of these views and motivations so that you can then provide the best options to support climate-friendly choices. This is where the Climate Action Toolkit comes in.
How does the toolkit work?
A lead team of students (e.g. an eco-group) alongside their teacher, work with us, to:
2. Generate insights
We will analyse the data and provide schools with a personalised insights report of:
- what students are doing to take climate action;
- what barriers are preventing them from taking further action;
- what would motivate and enable students to do more.
See an example of a school’s insight report here.
3. Create a campaign for action
Follow up activities will use the survey insights to create campaigns that help motivate climate action.
The activities are designed to:
- apply behaviour change approaches;
- be done in stages in your own time;
- used multiple times, applied to every climate action that you want to deliver;
- Download Activity 1: Our SMART Climate Action.
- Download activity 2: Investigating change
- Video: Top three secrets to unlocking sustainable behaviour change in schools with Leigh McMillan
4. Deliver the plan
We provide mentoring to help schools implement their specific plans and sustain change.
Feedback from Teachers
“We have used the Toolkit to prove that our school does want to make a change and we have used it as part of our funding campaign.”
Teacher, 2022
“The report findings are informing our Eco Schools Action plan and the priorities that we are working on this year.”
Teacher, 2022
“We really enjoyed all of the graphics and the colour! It was very engaging to look at. We also really enjoyed finding out the honest answers about our students’ attitudes to the environment.”
Teacher, 2022
Climate Action Toolkit in the community
National impact
Almost 4,000 secondary school students participated in the 2021 survey, launched to coincide with Youth and Public Empowerment Day at the COP26 summit in Glasgow. Read the report:
Regional impact
We have worked with Solihull Council (2021 – 2022) and Gloucestershire Council (2022) to support their efforts to enable young people to positively influence climate action locally and support their Net Zero Plans. This included working with the Councils and local youth climate groups to adapt the survey for the locality, and then provide bespoke reports.
“It really paints a vivid picture of how young people are feeling about climate change in Solihull.“
Marketing and Communications Officer (Climate Change & Sustainability), Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council.
Case study: Lyndon School
During 2021, the Toolkit helped enable a group of students at Lyndon School in Solihull to form a Climate Action group with the help of a highly proactive Geography lead teacher.
The teacher involved expressed the interest from this group to find out more about levels of awareness, understanding and action on climate change amongst others at school. They agreed to take part in ICN’s Climate Action Survey, which they were able to complete online despite the lockdown and closure of schools for face-to-face learning. Subsequently, presentations about their findings have been given to:
- Years 7-10, in which they also educated students on the role that plastic has on the environment and climate.
- Senior Leadership Team, which also included what they thought the next steps should be.
With the responses from the survey a new Climate Action group of students had the insights and knowledge of where to prioritise their efforts.
The group developed two core aims:
- To educate pupils on the impact that their actions have on the environment and the world around them.
- To mitigate this impact by enacting strategies which can be adopted in everyday life at Lyndon by staff and pupils.
The group has begun to influence the wider school community to take climate action, including teachers and the senior management team. They’ve also had media coverage about their work, such as an interview that was played at drive time on local radio stations. See the short film above.
Partners and Supporters
We are grateful to the expert input into the survey and activity design provided by our pilot schools, sociology students at the University of Gloucestershire alongside the research firms Globescan and Humankind Research. The development and rollout of the toolkit has been made possible through the support of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the abrdn Charitable Foundation and the Dr Martens Foundation.
If you would like to enquire about supporting the further development of the Climate Action Toolkit, or partnering with us, please use the button below.