We recently announced a new case-study led article series from the UKSSN, in this piece – E-ACT demonstrate how they are taking a system-led approach to sustainability and climate action
As a national multi-academy trust serving diverse communities, we are driven by a clear purpose: to ensure every pupil has access to high-quality education and the opportunity to succeed. Increasingly, sustainability and climate action are integral to this mission. They are not an additional initiative but a core part of building resilient schools, responsible citizens, and financially sustainable systems. Addressing climate change is not a separate challenge, it is part of our broader commitment to ensuring schools can thrive for the long term, both educationally and environmentally.
We are applying strong central infrastructure alongside a collaborative approach to embed sustainability across our estate. By combining strategic leadership from the centre with empowered action at school level, we are developing a model that is both scalable and inclusive, capable of supporting schools of varying sizes, contexts and resource levels.
Sustainability as Part of Our System Leadership
Climate considerations are increasingly aligned with our estate’s strategy, financial planning, risk management, and workforce development, ensuring we make long-term decisions that support both educational outcomes and organisational resilience. This systems-led perspective ensures that sustainability is not treated as an optional add-on but embedded within core trust operations.
This top-down clarity is critical in a trust of our scale. Our central team provides the guidance, expertise and tools that enable consistency across schools, while still allowing flexibility to reflect the unique characteristics of individual communities and buildings. Sustainability becomes integral to daily decision-making, not an additional burden on school leaders, while still giving schools the agency to make decisions that are relevant to them and their settings.
Importantly, this approach reflects our inclusive ethos. By providing central capacity and expertise, we ensure that every school regardless of size, location, or infrastructure can participate in and benefit from sustainability initiatives. These initiatives result in reduced costs and lower carbon emissions, freeing resources that can be reinvested into teaching and learning where they are most needed.
Centralised Energy Management and Informed Decision-Making
Our commitment to data-led improvement underpins how we approach sustainability. Centralised energy management gives us visibility across our estate, enabling us to understand patterns of energy use, benchmark performance and identify opportunities for improvement.
By bringing energy data together at trust level, we can prioritise support, target investment, and plan interventions that have the greatest environmental and financial impact. This might include addressing inefficient buildings through retrofitting and upgrades, reducing unnecessary out-of-hours consumption, or helping schools understand how behaviour influences energy use.
This approach supports both environmental, financial and social sustainability. Schools can focus on teaching and learning, confident that sustainability management is supported by robust central systems, while decisions are increasingly guided by evidence and measurable impact.
Estate-Wide Resilience and Long-Term Planning
Climate change presents practical challenges for schools, from overheating and extreme weather to rising utility costs. Taking an estate-wide view allows us to plan strategically, reduce risk and make the most of limited resources. By aligning maintenance, capital investment, and decarbonisation priorities, we protect learning environments while supporting continuity for pupils and staff, particularly in communities that may already experience disadvantage.
Partnership working has been a key enabler. Engagement with initiatives such as the LocatED Net Zero Accelerator Pathfinder in 2025 demonstrated the impact of behaviour change on both energy costs and carbon emissions. Combined with onsite renewable energy generation (solar PV), LED lighting installations, and behaviour change pilots in key schools, we achieved a 28% kWh saving and 450 tonnes of CO₂e reduction in electricity, and a 37% kWh saving and 1,116 tonnes of CO₂e reduction in gas. This equates to nearly £500,000 saved each and every year.
Our ambition is to continue improving resilience while contributing to national climate goals, with climate action driven by our steering committee, Climate Action Plans and supported by dedicated Sustainability Leads.
Building Capability Through Professional Development
We recognise that sustainable change depends on people. That’s why we are developing in-house training programmes to ensure staff across the trust have the knowledge, confidence and shared understanding needed to contribute effectively to climate action.
For leaders, this means understanding how sustainability intersects with financial health, estates strategy, and long-term trust improvement. Estates and operations teams are supported to develop expertise in energy systems, low-carbon technologies, green infrastructure and biodiversity enhancement. Teachers are encouraged to build confidence in climate education, enabling sustainability to be integrated meaningfully across the curriculum.
This trust-wide approach reflects our commitment to collaboration and continuous improvement, ensuring sustainability becomes part of professional practice rather than a specialist interest.
Connecting Operations and Education
A distinctive feature of our approach is the deliberate link between operational sustainability and educational enrichment. Energy use, solar generation and estates projects are increasingly viewed as opportunities for real-world learning rather than background activities.
When pupils explore real data from their own school buildings, sustainability becomes tangible and relevant. This supports learning across science, geography, mathematics and citizenship, while encouraging critical thinking and responsibility. Our pupil ambassador programme and Climate Action Boards at school level help shape strategy, ensuring our climate goals are informed by those we serve.
A Trust-Led Model for the Future
Our approach at E-ACT demonstrates how a large, inclusive trust can embed sustainability at scale through strong central support and local ownership. Strategic direction, data and partnerships provide the foundation, while schools contribute creativity, context and community connection.
While our focus has been on energy management and decarbonisation, we are also committing to waste reduction, recycling, sustainable transport, professional development and improved learning environments, all supported by school-led direct action. Together, these efforts accelerate our journey toward Net Zero.
As the education sector responds to the climate challenge alongside ongoing financial pressures, trusts like ours are well placed to lead. By aligning sustainability with our core values, think big, show team spirit and do the right thing, we are demonstrating how climate action can strengthen systems, enrich education and support long-term impact for staff, pupils and communities, creating a better future for all.
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