The Department for Education (DfE) is planning to set up a digital support hub for guidance and information on net zero efforts in the sector.
It has appointed a partnership, led by TPXImpact and supported by United Learning and Blue Marble, to build and embed the hub as a central service within its sustainability and climate change portfolio.
They have agreed on a two-year contract valued at almost £2.4 million for the work.
According to the award notice, the hub will support sustainability leadership in education by enabling organisations to self-assess their confidence and expertise in the field, and provide details of training and additional resources. This will include a directory of quality assured organisations to provide relevant support.
The service will also take data from DfE systems on factors such as energy usage, emissions, waste, travel and climate and flooding risk.
Analysis, benchmarks, insights
“The platform will collate and analyse this data to form sector-wide benchmarks and provide insights to inform both future DfE policies and setting-specific climate action plans, allowing for setting data comparisons to be presented to the user in an easily understandable format,” the notice says.
“Frequency and format will be agreed with the provider following contract commencement depending on data collection vehicles and other data collection elements.”
It is all aimed at embedding climate change and sustainability in the users’ education and operational activities.
Building action plans
A DfE spokesperson said the hub “will help all settings to perform a simple self-assessment, navigate to the help they need and develop or build on an evidence based action plan.
“We will provide a sector engagement and support service, led by the University of Reading and EAUC (the Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education) to develop local networks and recruit and deploy climate ambassadors from academia, industry and civic society."
In April 2022, DfE launched its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy for the education and children’s services systems, which sets out how the UK education sector can become a world leader in addressing climate change by 2030. Sustainability leadership is a key initiative of the strategy, and the department has committed to support the development of climate action plans in all settings by 2025.
