I’ve been looking through the Zero Carbon Taskforce’s final report that was published earlier today.
Bowbridge Primary School in Notts
My first reaction is the say that they’ve done a difficult job marrying up government rhetoric with the realities of the front line – and Robin and his team really deserve some credit for that.
They also appear to have got their disappointment in first! They are certainly a good deal more realistic with their targets. The idea of creating prototypes is a good idea in principle, but we’re hardly at Year Zero in this respect, are we? There are already lots of great schools out there.
There are some great examples of schools that have made serious inroads into this issue. We’ve got a bank of more than 170 case studies that we picked up doing our awards in 2009. When I spoke to the Headteacher of the Bowbridge Primary School in Notts (our 2009 winner of the Greening the School Community award), he said that ‘green leadership’ was really key to his success.
Bowbridge are just the tip of the iceberg – there is tons of uncharted human experience in those 170+ buildings and Bowbridge was only one of a significant number of schools that deserve more attention than they are getting at the moment.
All of that said, we think that the Task Force’s analysis (PDF) of the ‘carbon journey’ is a really useful tool for local authorities and schools. Partnerships for Schools have also been tasked to deliver the new ‘Smart Metering’ initiative to help pupils become more aware of energy use issues. This is probably the most understated opportunity here. Greening schools is not just about reducing the footprint of the individual buildings – the educational opportunity is the real prize here.
You can have a look at a Flickr slideshow about Bowbridge here. Remember, all of these pictures are published on a Creative Commons licence which means that you can use them in your publications as long as you say where you got them from – i.e. Pictures courtesy of The Centre for School Design and Bowbridge Primary School.
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