Case study - The Park Primary

Since achieving their first Eco-Schools Green Flag in 2018, pupils at The Park Primary School have undertaken some serious eco-action. They audited the school building to identify spots of water wastage, thought about the impact of the devices they used at home, and even began looking at the school canteen to see what types of food had the greatest climate impact.  

They decided to make some changes to the menu. The pupils rolled up their sleeves and began growing their own veg on the school grounds for the lunchtime staff to use. Plus, after an intense discussion, the children decided to remove burgers from the school menu. It was a price worth paying to reduce indirect water usage and lower their carbon emissions.  

An average primary school introducing just one meat-free day a week could swap 3,770 meat-based meals for plant-based meals each year. As a result, just one school could save 2,865kg of carbon emission, and 1,546 m3 of water, each year. 

The Eco-Schools programme allows pupils to see how small menu changes can have a powerful effect on carbon emissions and climate change, and that’s just one of many reasons we want to make every school an Eco-School.  

The Eco-Schools programme empowers young people to lead the charge on climate change, and prepares them for the careers that will bring us closer to net zero. The future environmental leaders of Park Primary School got the opportunity to present their work nationally at Canary Wharf, and they did it in style – dressed in t-shirts tie-dyed with blackberries grown on their own school grounds.  

1 This calculation is: An average primary school has 281 children and 43% eat school lunch so 121 meals per day. On meat-free (MF) days we typically find that the average uptake split between meat/fish dishes and veggie is around 80/20. So if a school introduces a new MF day, we multiply their meals per day figure x 5 (days of the week) x 39 (academic weeks of the year) to get meals per year figure. Then, meals per year divided by 5 x 0.8 gives us the number of meals swapped. This would be 23,562 meals per year in total and 3,770 meals swapped in an average primary school if they introduce one MF day per week.