Zellar, the smart sustainability company, has officially launched its Zellar Schools programme to help 32,000 UK schools take climate action and save costs.
Zellar Schools programme will be accessible to all schools in the UK from just £200 a year and is open to sign up today.
The launch follows the success of a six-month pilot programme in which over 90 primary and secondary, state and independent schools participated.
Zellar Schools programme is powered by Zellar’s digital sustainability platform, which makes it easy for schools to make a start and take climate action. It helps them calculate and understand their carbon emissions and then build an achievable plan to reduce them.
Each school gets its own Zellar sustainability score enabling them to monitor and share their journey with teachers, children and parents. Multi-academy trusts (MATs) with multiple schools can use Zellar’s score to track, compare and measure progress across their estate.
During the pilot, schools used Zellar to understand their scope 1 and 2 emissions and went on to implement over 350 wide ranging operational changes, from mandating energy checks across the school estate to investing in solar panels. The programme is estimated to have reduced carbon emissions by 3.2t CO₂ and saved £4,923 in energy costs – per school.
Zellar Schools supports sustainability leads without requiring extensive time commitments or costly consultants. As well as gaining full access to Zellar’s sustainability platform, schools will receive ongoing sustainability support such as educational and partner content, webinars and demos, community interaction such as networking opportunities and regular communication from the Zellar team.
Additionally, Zellar’s programme promotes biodiversity and environmental change while helping institutions meet the Department for Education’s (DfE) requirements for reporting emissions and creating a comprehensive Climate Action Plan.
Gary Styles, founder of Zellar commented: “This is an exciting moment for Zellar. We’ve always seen schools as critical to igniting and accelerating community climate action.
“Now, with the launch of Zellar Schools any UK school can simply report their emissions and build a climate action plan aimed at reducing them, all for £200 per year.
“The programme has already proven to pay for itself with the potential to deliver thousands of pounds of savings across energy, water and waste.”
He continued “As well as a practical tool for helping schools to manage sustainability, the platform is full of engaging sustainability projects that can be used to engage, educate and inspire a generation of children around the importance of sustainability and climate action.”
Tibshelf Community School, who joined the initial pilot commented: “Zellar has become our school’s sustainability saviour, a one-stop-shop that’s engaged our school around the biggest issue of our generation, focusing our thinking, enabling us to build a tailored roadmap and a step-by-step climate action plan.”
Kate Walsh, school improvement administrator at Oxford Diocesan Schools also on the pilot programme, said: “Having a personalised climate action plan that the whole school community can contribute to will help us to become a sustainable school by saving energy and money, while also giving children an opportunity to make a difference to their world.”
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