Sustainability

The Green Room School is excited to announce that SUSTAINABILITY is our new WIG (Wildly Important Goal) for 2025/6.

Going, and staying, green, is hugely important for all of us at The Green Room, and we have pledged to drive eco-conscious changes through all aspects of the organisation.

In order to reach our Goal of net zero by 2030, The Green Room Foundation has to achieve a yearly reduction of 26.8 tonnes of CO2 per year. This is our Goal breakdown for this year, what we can focus on each term:

Autumn term 25:

Getting to grips with the Climate Action Plan
Starting to work with Eco Ambassadors
Quick wins
Eco chat and a culture of sharing resources
Rolling out new procurement policy

Spring term 26: "GR Unplugged"

Heat efficiency (boilers programming, closing doors/windows)
Lights off reminders
Devices: what's the best option for battery health, what needs to be plugged in?
Energy usage audit
Offline Hour

Summer term 26:

“No-Mow May”
Wildflower section in all gardens
Earth Day celebrations at GRFest
Wildflower “bombs” for sale
GRFest challenge: Use recycled materials to create something special for the festival. Winners to be announced on the night.

These are some of the initiatives we have launched so far:

Eco Warriors

We have appointed a staff Eco Lead and student Eco Ambassador for each school, to champion sustainability and help our Green Room community make greener choices to protect our planet.

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Climate Action Plan

We're increasing our focus on achieving net zero and have signed up to the Let's Go Zero campaign. Let's Go Zero supports schools in becoming zero carbon by 2030, offering guidance, resources and help with a Climate Action Plan.

Landscaping and Biodiversity

We’re thrilled to have final planning approval for the landscaping and biodiversity schemes at GRC, allowing us to create a calm, wildlife-friendly space for our community to enjoy.

Ecoegg Laundry Eggs

Our schools and staff now use Ecoegg laundry eggs, which last for many washes, reduce packaging, and are gentler on skin, a simple, sustainable choice.

Compost Bins and Waterbutts

We have added a leafmould compost bin next to our hot composter at GRK and have sourced spare waterbutts to add to our allotments and garden spaces.

Reusing and Recyling

We reuse materials wherever possible, from turning old pallets into composter lids at the allotment to repurposing decking wood as a serving shelf on the horse box.

Procurement Policy

We’ve introduced a new procurement policy to support our sustainability goals, embedding environmental and social considerations into our purchasing decisions, reducing our environmental impact as an organisation.

Allotment Produce

We use our lovely homegrown seasonal allotment produce to make school lunches where we can.

Mascot Competition

Focusing on heating, lighting and switches, we challenged staff and students to design a mascot to become a sticker placed around the Foundation, reminding everyone to turn lights off when not in use. This is Green Room Barry - our Eco mascot!

Kitchen Waste

Recyling bins are used at the schools and the compost bin is taken to market garden each day.

Thermal Camera

We’ve used a thermal camera to identify where heat is being lost from our buildings. Darker areas show colder spots, helping us see where improvements, such as around windows, can be made.

Second hand furniture and IT

During the refurbishment of our new school spaces we have used Facebook Marketplace and Ebay to buy our furniture and for school chromebooks we buy refurbished tech from Back Market.

Plants in all classrooms

We’re adding plants to all our classrooms, propagating from existing ones instead of buying new where we can. We also managed to coincide this with plant reproduction in science!

Electric Minibuses

We’ve added two new electric minibuses to our fleet: Wilma, based in Windsor, and Kevin, based in Kingsley. By using electric vehicles, we’re cutting emissions and making our transport more sustainable.

Climate Fresk Workshop

Using interactive information cards, our teams worked together to map out the complex causes of climate change and identify effective solutions. We finished the session with a clear set of actionable insights to help us build a greener future.

Lighting Audit

All provisions underwent a lighting audit and found lots of classrooms with lumen counts too high for comfort (and energy use!) It then kicked off a campaign to turn off or dim the lights where required