Renew your Eco-Schools Green Flag award

If you already hold a Green Flag, you’ll need to renew the award after two years. If you’re not certain how long you have left, then log into your school’s page and you’ll be able to view a counter, showing how many days are left. Your renewal date is also on your Eco-Schools certificate.

To renew your Green Flag Award you must first log in to the site with your email address and password, you can do that at the top right hand side of this page.  If you don't have your password please use the forgotten password link above.

For a comprehensive guide to using our online application system, download the Eco-Coordinator's User Guide from our Programmes Materials page. 

To do all the necessary work to renew you need to:

• Continue your current Eco-Schools work – this includes carrying out an Environmental Review once a year, keeping your Action Plan up to date, and keeping your environmental work going, driven by the Eco-Committee
• Tackle any requirements from your previous Green Flag award. If you’re not sure whether you were given any requirements, they’ll be listed in your award letter
• Expand the programme to include Eco-Schools topics you may not have tackled previously

Required method of progression through the Eco-Schools nine topics

Please note that energy is now a compulsory topic

• First Green Flag Award application
  To gain their first Green Flag, a school needs to have concentrated on at least three in-depth Eco-Schools topics and this must be reflected in the Action Plan
   
• First renewal application
  You have held an award for two years running, you must demonstrate work on five topics (this can be three that are ongoing from your previous work and two in-depth additional topics, all of these must be reflected in the Action Plan)
   
• Second renewal application
  You have held an awards for four years running, you must work on seven topics (this can be five that are ongoing from your previous work and two in-depth additional topics, all of these must be reflected in the Action Plan)
   
• Third renewal application or beyond
  You have held an award for six years running or more, you must work on all nine topics (this can be seven that are ongoing form your previous work and two in-depth additional topics, all of these must be reflected in the Action Plan)

All schools are expected to submit a renewal application. For long-standing Eco-Schools, work should focus on maintaining the environmental performance of the school, you must maintain and evidence work of all nine topics being followed, these must be reflected in the Action Plan.

Eco-Schools Ambassador role

Green Flag Eco-Schools who have held their award for four consecutive years may also with to consider applying for the role of an Eco-Schools Ambassador. An Eco-School Ambassador is an inspirational flagship school of the Eco-Schools programme that has completed in-depth work on all nine Eco-Schools topics and ensured sustainability is embedded into the curriculum. 

Visit our Eco-Schools Ambassador role page for more details about what it involves and application dates.

What happens if we don’t submit a Green Flag renewal application?

When your award is coming up for renewal, Eco-Schools will write to you approximately six months before your renewal is due. We then issue a second reminder letter three months later. If we don’t receive an application, we’ll then send a lapsed flag letter, giving you 28 days to get in touch with us.

If you’re struggling to get your application in on time, please contact the Eco-Schools team as soon as possible. In rare circumstances we do offer extensions. Unfortunately, if we don’t hear from schools, we’ll write to the school two months after the renewal date, asking the school to take down the Green Flag.

If, through changes of staff or other circumstances, Eco-Schools has slipped from your main agenda, we’re happy to discuss rejoining the programme at any time.