In 2023, the government released Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy for Education. The guidance announced that by September 2025, all education settings should have nominated a sustainability lead and put in place a climate action plan.
This isn’t a gentle suggestion – it’s a government requirement that applies to early years settings, schools, multi-academy trusts, colleges, and universities.
Yet conversations with school leaders suggest many are still unaware of this deadline, despite it being… well, right now.
What Actually Needs to Be in Your Climate Action Plan
Your Climate Action Plan isn’t just a document to tick a compliance box, it must outline the steps and strategies your school will take to address and mitigate climate change.
The government expects plans to address four key areas:
Decarbonisation:
Calculating and taking actions to reduce carbon emissions, such as becoming more energy efficient through infrastructure improvements and technology choices.
Adaptation and Resilience:
Taking actions to reduce the risk of flooding and overheating will be particularly important as extreme weather events become more frequent.
Improving Environment and Biodiversity:
Engaging with initiatives like the National Education Nature Park to enhance your school grounds and outdoor learning opportunities.
Climate Education and Green Careers:
Ensuring your curriculum provides knowledge-rich and comprehensive teaching about climate change, with staff supported to deliver this effectively.
The IT Connection Most Schools Don’t Consider
Here’s what many schools don’t realise…
Your technology choices directly impact your ability to create an effective Climate Action Plan. IT infrastructure accounts for up to 40% of school electricity usage, making your technology decisions some of the most impactful choices you can make for both budget savings and environmental compliance.
The government guidance specifically mentions that sustainable ICT solutions will be integrated into new-build schools as standard, via sustainable procurement, design, implementation and management. This means existing schools need to catch up with sustainability standards that will become baseline expectations.
The Quick Wins
The great thing about sustainable IT choices is that they often save money while helping you meet compliance requirements. Government guidance highlights several immediate opportunities:
Desktop to Laptop Migration: Replacing desktop computers with laptops or tablets that use less energy could typically reduce energy consumption from the equipment by up to 80%. This single change can dramatically impact both your carbon footprint and electricity bills.
Cloud Migration Benefits: Moving to cloud-based alternatives to replace energy intensive computing equipment, such as servers can eliminate significant on-site energy consumption while improving reliability and reducing maintenance costs.
Smart Energy Management: Schools implementing cloud solutions and modern equipment typically see up to 80% reduction in energy consumption, £3,000-£8,000 annual savings in electricity costs, and additional savings in cooling and maintenance.
Who Takes Responsibility?
Alongside your Climate Action Plan, you must appoint a sustainability lead whose role involves driving forward both action and awareness for the school. This person will typically monitor and report progress, build community engagement, and integrate sustainability into the curriculum where appropriate.
But who in your school has time to take on this additional responsibility? The reality is that the sustainability lead doesn’t need to be an environmental expert – they need to be someone who can coordinate actions across your school community and understand how different decisions contribute to your environmental goals.
Where Schools Are Struggling
Here are the concerns delaying Climate Action Plan development:
Technical Knowledge Gaps: Understanding which technologies actually reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions requires expertise many schools don’t have in-house.
Budget Constraints: Climate action often feels like an additional expense rather than an opportunity for savings, particularly when upfront costs for efficient technology seem high.
Measuring Impact: Many schools don’t know their baseline energy consumption or carbon footprint, making it difficult to set realistic targets or measure progress.
Integration Complexity: Connecting IT decisions to environmental impact isn’t obvious, leaving schools unsure which technology choices support their Climate Action Plan objectives.
The Support That’s Available (But Often Unknown)
The government recognises that schools need help with this requirement and has created support mechanisms that many schools haven’t discovered yet:
Free Government Resources: Support is available through the Sustainability Support for Education service, which provides resources, services and tools to help you identify appropriate action to develop your climate action plan.
On-Ground Support: The Climate Ambassador Programme provides access to volunteer climate ambassadors and regional networks to support the development and delivery of impactful climate action plans.
Collaborative Opportunities: Schools can learn from others who have already started this journey, sharing approaches and learning from successful implementations.
Starting With What You Can Control
Rather than feeling frustrated by the entire sustainability challenge, start small with a technology audit that will identify immediate opportunities for improvement:
Energy Consumption Analysis: Understanding how much energy your current IT infrastructure uses provides a baseline for measuring improvement and identifying the biggest opportunities for savings.
Equipment Lifecycle Assessment: Evaluating which devices are due for replacement anyway allows you to make sustainable choices without additional budget pressure.
Cloud Migration Evaluation: Assessing which services could move from on-premise servers to cloud solutions often reveals opportunities for significant energy savings.
Infrastructure Efficiency Review: Examining network equipment, wireless systems, and classroom technology for energy-efficient alternatives that reduce ongoing costs.
Aligning Purchases With Climate Goals
Once you have a Climate Action Plan, it transforms your technology procurement decisions. Having a documented action plan enables schools to align their procurement processes with their updated sustainability goals, ensuring that each supplier meets the new green standard and accelerates the school’s decarbonisation efforts.
This alignment also reduces the risk of project overspend as clear needs and aims are outlined from the start, making technology decisions more strategic and cost-effective.
More Reasons to Develop Your Climate Plan
While the DfE has said that Climate Action Plans should be completed and sustainability leaders selected by September 2025, the repercussions of not meeting this deadline are still unclear. However, the Climate and Sustainability strategy noted that progress against national targets will be published from 2025 onwards.
This suggests that schools falling behind on the deadline could face possible criticism when progress, or lack thereof, is published. More importantly, schools without plans will miss opportunities for green funding, efficiency savings, and recognition as environmental leaders.
Beyond Compliance
Forward-thinking schools are recognising that Climate Action Plans create opportunities beyond just meeting government requirements:
Cost Reduction: An organised approach to energy efficiency can deliver substantial ongoing savings that improve budget sustainability.
Competitive Advantage: Environmental leadership attracts environmentally conscious families and staff who want to work in sustainable organisations.
Funding Access: Many funding streams prioritise organisations with clear environmental strategies and measurable improvement plans.
Educational Enhancement: Climate action provides authentic, practical learning opportunities across multiple curriculum areas.
Getting Started: The Morecambe Bay Academy Approach
Following the successful model demonstrated at Morecambe Bay Academy, here’s a practical approach that has proven to work:
Week 1-2: Baseline Assessment Begin with a comprehensive IT energy audit, just as Dataspire did for Morecambe Bay Academy, to understand your current consumption and identify immediate opportunities for improvement. This assessment revealed the energy-hungry systems that were hindering both performance and sustainability goals.
Week 3-4: Leadership Appointment Identify your sustainability lead – Phil Thomlinson at Morecambe Bay Academy took on this coordinated responsibility alongside his network management role, proving you don’t always need a completely new appointment.
Month 2: Plan Development Use government templates and support services to develop your Climate Action Plan, starting with the technology improvements that offer quick wins. Morecambe Bay Academy’s approach focused on infrastructure changes that delivered both educational and environmental benefits.
Month 3: Implementation Planning Create realistic timelines for implementing changes that align with your existing budget cycles and infrastructure refresh plans, potentially including funding applications like the Public Sector Decarbonisation scheme that Morecambe Bay Academy successfully accessed.
The school year has already begun, but starting your Climate Action Plan with an IT energy audit gives you immediate wins while building towards compliance. The schools that act now position themselves as environmental leaders while discovering cost savings they didn’t know existed.
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