How can we teach students if we do not practice the concepts ourselves?
Whenever your school is in its sustainability journey, let me help you take the next step. Here are the areas I specialize in. For all other areas, I highly recommend Inspire Citizens.
Sustainability Assessment and Visioning (Where are we | What do we aspire to be?)
Student Centered Projects through using the School Campus as a Sustainability Living Lab
When and How to Give Sustainability an Official Role within a School
Customized Support for Facility-Related Initiatives (e.g. recycling system, transport electrification, green buildings)
Sustainability assessment and visioning
Let us help you answer the questions: Where are we now and What do we aspire to be?
A School Sustainability Assessment is a process that will guide a collective of individuals (this can be leadership, faculty, students, and/or parents) through discussions covering topics most relevant to schools such as wellness, food, waste, and buildings.
A school can expect to have a map of strengths and weakness across the topics, example best and leadership practices to consider, and greater understanding of what ‘sustainability’ means in the context of a school.
We support a number of assessment frameworks including the International School of Beijing’s Purpose Built Sustainable School Assessment and Compass Education’s Sustainability Self-Assessment Tool.
The Sustainability Vision Process provides a school with a clear long-term path forward in relation to the issues it deems most important to the continued success of its students, staff and the greater community. Often term a Plan or Roadmap, this vision is a collection of targets / goals, standards and commitments.
The visioning process builds on the awareness and findings of a self or guided sustainability assessment. If your desired outcome is a Sustainability Roadmap, we highly recommend completing the two actions in sequence.
Vision outputs come in many forms. Search for ‘sustainability roadmap/strategy/plan’ to reflect on how different corporations and universities outline their future direction. For secondary schools, we recommend looking at the Sustainability Roadmap 2025 published by the the International School of Beijing, which was based on the great work of Harvard University’s Sustainability Plan.
Let us help you articulate your ambitions to your community and beyond.
Wellness page from the International School of Beijing’s purpose built sustainability school assessment.
Excerpt from our Supplemental Guidance to the Compass Education Sustainability Self-Assessment Tool
The Most Material Issues from which the International School of Beijing constructed its Sustainability Roadmap 2025.
Excerpt from the International School of Beijing’s Sustainability Rotoadmap 2025.
Student Centered Learning using sustainability as a living lab
Sustainability as a Living Lab is an opportunity to practice applied learning, a practical approach that is supported by research to increase student motivation, foster student-centered instruction, and provide real world application. It is also an opportunity for high-impact learning, where students explore content and directly apply new knowledge.
Matthew established the Net Impact ISB club in 2017 after meeting with high school students who expressed their desire to make a net positive impact on the school as a way to contribute to the global issues that concerned them most. While providing students this opportunity has been transformational for the school as can be seen by the real world impact examples below, the most important outcome is that students are developing the skills to become effective change agents.
Let us help you develop this capacity within your co-curricular program using the International School of Beijing’s Net Impact ISB high school student club as a model.
Net Impact ISB initiates the school recycling program
Net Impact ISB project electrifies the bus fleet
Give Sustainability an Official Role within your School
Most gaps in sustainability programs can be tied back to a lack of any role having explicit responsibility for sustainability. Now is the time to break that cycle.
Let us help you define what this up and coming role within your organization. The manager of sustainability can look vastly different depending on school priorities, but there are key components that are needed to set the role and school up for success.
At its best, sustainability is a collaborative process. We are ready to build the capacity of your manager of sustainability (one-on-one coaching; connection to resources, best practice guides, peers, and/or training).
have an issue specific need?
We have expertise in helping schools with green buildings, transportation electrification, and waste management systems.