Climate Action Toolkit
Through a series of student-led activities our Climate Action Toolkit sets out to engage and motivate the whole school community with your climate action plan.
How does the toolkit work?
Designed to be useful for either new climate action plans or existing projects the toolkit activities introduce behaviour change approaches and will help to:
- Develop baselines and prioritise actions
- Apply invaluable insights about motivations and challenges to action in school
- Design and implement action that is more creative, positive and powerful.
Co-developed with secondary school students, research agencies and universities the toolkit activities can be used in sequence or separately, and are designed to build skills and be re-applied to every climate action that you want to deliver.
The toolkit is featured on Sustainability Support for Education, commissioned by the Department for Education, having being assessed using their quality assurance process.
1. Run a Climate Action Survey
Roll out our online survey across school, aiming for as many students as possible to ‘have a say’ and be involved in climate action planning. We analyse the data and provide each school its own report that gives clear insights into students’:
- Action on climate change.
- Views on sustainability in school.
- Barriers and motivators for more action.
Insights from your survey will inform any campaigns you develop in the next step.
ICN also draws together findings from participating schools and shares these widely via regional and national platforms.
👉 Download the resources here.
2. Create a campaign for action
Use our sequence of three activities to lead campaigns that make climate action easier, more appealing and fun to do.
- Select your priority for climate action.
- Investigate what is currently preventing action from taking place.
- Motivate others using behaviour change ideas that make action more creative, easier and powerful.
The activities can be applied to everything from supporting waste reduction or promoting active travel to encouraging more students to participate in and enjoy nature.
👉 Download the Campaign for Action resources here.
👉 Access great ideas for communicating and motivating action here
3. Participate in skills advice webinars
Our skills-based webinars boost student and teacher skills in climate action.
We provide experts’ input on:
- Changing behaviours.
- Engaging different groups.
- Fun and creative ways for getting your message across more powerfully.
👉 Take a look at our short webinars, led by practitioners, here
Skills and benefits
- Helps shape climate action plans, reduce your schools’ emissions and implement the UK Strategy for Sustainability and Climate Change. The toolkit is featured on Sustainability Support for Education, commissioned by the Department for Education.
- Develops skills in leadership, communication, research, analysis, teamwork and critical thinking.
- Increase 11–18-year olds’ say in sustainability decisions that directly affect them.
- Curriculum benefits with links to PSHE, sociology, psychology.
- Supports Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Career Guidance: new knowledge and skills, including through learning with experts.
Impact
Between 2022 and 2025 we have carried out 38 Climate Action Survey reports, engaging with over 20,000 secondary school students.
It has been very useful to have the survey insights to show our staff, parents and governors that our students really do care and want to see change. We have then been able to use the survey insights to inform our climate action plan that we created with the Let’s Go Zero team.” Teacher, 2024
“I found it useful to learn how to properly plan and execute an eco-project.”
Student, 2023
“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
Partners and Funders
We are grateful for the expert input into the survey and activity design provided by our pilot schools, sociology students at the University of Gloucestershire, MSc Behaviour Change students at UCL, alongside research firms Globescan and Humankind Research.
The toolkit and our support to schools has been made possible through the support of Movement for Good, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the abrdn Charitable Foundation, the Dr Martens Foundation, European Union Erasmus+ Programme, The Grocers’ Charity and Heart of Bucks Community Foundation. Thanks to Garfield Weston Foundation for their support in 2024 and 2025.
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.