Our new UKSSN-led series explores how sustainability is moving from aspiration to lived reality, examining how schools and trusts are aligning curriculum, estates and operations
Curriculum, Carbon and the Classroom
As the education sector moves towards implementing the 2025 Curriculum & Assessment Review, one message is becoming increasingly clear: sustainability can no longer sit in a silo. The DfE’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy reflect government policy – environmental responsibility at the heart of decision-making – and the ISBL Sustainability Standards, created alongside UKSSN, have given SBLs a professional framework to support their development as strategic leaders of sustainability. With curriculum reform on the horizon, schools and trusts are being called to demonstrate something deeper – a visible alignment between what pupils learn and how their schools operate.
This five-part EdExec series explores exactly that. It examines how sustainability can be embedded not only in curriculum intent, but also in the operational reality of school buildings, procurement, energy management and long-term estates planning. The series showcases four multi-academy trusts, each taking a distinct approach to the challenge. Their stories offer inspiration, practical insight and a set of models that other schools and trusts can adapt to their own contexts.
A New Era for Climate Change Education
The 2025 Curriculum Review frames climate literacy and environmental understanding as essential components of a modern curriculum. We can therefore expect that sustainability will be strengthened across subjects, deepening pupils’ understanding of climate science, and expanding opportunities for environmental learning. But curriculum alone cannot deliver the cultural shift the sector needs. Pupils learn not only from lessons, but from the systems, spaces and behaviours that surround them.
A school that teaches about biodiversity without investing in nature, or explores renewable energy while operating inefficient buildings, sends mixed messages. The DfE strategy is explicit: sustainability must be lived as well as taught. This means the estate, the curriculum and the school’s operational culture working in harmony.
The National Education Nature Park reinforces this expectation. By encouraging schools to map, enhance and celebrate their natural environments, it positions the estate as a learning asset — a living classroom. Similarly, the growing number of sustainability awards within education highlights the sector’s shift towards recognising whole-school approaches rather than isolated initiatives.
Climate Risks to the Delivery of Education
The urgency behind this alignment is not theoretical. The DfE’s recent ‘Impact of UK climate change risk on the delivery of education’ paper makes clear that rising temperatures, increased flooding, and more frequent extreme weather events pose direct threats to the continuity and quality of education. Heatwaves can make classrooms unsafe. Flooding can close entire sites. Storm damage can disrupt learning for weeks.
Introducing the Four Trusts
To help schools navigate this landscape, this series spotlights four multi-academy trusts, each demonstrating a different route to sustainability. Their contexts vary – in size, geography, leadership structure, and estate complexity – but each offers a compelling model that others can learn from.
REAch2
A large, geographically diverse primary trust taking a blended approach: central guidance paired with school‑level empowerment. Their work highlights how sustainability can be embedded in primary curriculum themes while aligning with estate upgrades and long‑term planning.
EACT
E-ACT is a multi-academy trust responsible for 38 academies, primary, secondary and all through across England. E-ACTs mission is to empower all 25,000 pupils to realise their potential. It is a trust known for its strong central systems and data driven decision making. Their energy management strategy has delivered renewable energy on site and behaviour change strategies to reduce dependence on the grid, cut costs and give money back to schools where it is most needed.
St Bart’s
A trust with children at the heart of everything they do. Sustainability is a golden thread that weaves through all areas of the trust operations, linking estates, procurement, finance, ICT, business and curriculum, with children driving change and taking meaningful action. Collective responsibility and institutional knowledge along with a systems driven approach demonstrate an inclusive model for integrating sustainability into the DNA of a multi academy trust.
Heart Academies Trust
A trust taking a whole-system approach, integrating curriculum, estates, procurement, ICT, wellbeing, and leadership into a unified environmental strategy. Their model illustrates how sustainability can become a cultural thread running through every aspect of school life.
In the next article in this series, we turn the spotlight on REAch2.
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