It can be hard to know how sustainable your childcare centre is without a proper assessment. It’s also daunting to start one, but it doesn’t have to be a hard task. Even 10 minutes in your team meeting can bring up many insights to get you moving in your sustainability journey.
Steps to a Sustainability Assessment
- Organise a designated time with your team.
- Consider what you’re currently doing, what’s working well, what’s not working, and what your team could do to make the centre more sustainable.
- Brainstorm the most effective solutions you can implement in the immediate future.
- Review after a month. Has the solution been working? How could it be improved or what could you implement next?
- Repeat to move along your sustainable childcare journey!
Focus on these 5 aspects of sustainability in childcare to drive a productive conversation. Involve the children in this process to build a strong sustainable teaching practice.
Waste
Childcare centres have the potential to produce a lot of waste. It comes with the territory of entertaining children and keeping your activities interesting. Consider a circular economy model and the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. What are your biggest waste sources? Food and paper waste are most likely your largest waste streams. How can you reduce the waste, reuse it, or recycle it?
There is plenty your centre can do to deal with waste sustainably. Check out our short guide on recovering waste from your centre.
Energy
Sustainable energy involves a wide range of factors, from your energy source to the efficiency of your appliances. Do you have solar panels or source clean energy from your provider? Consider the energy rating of your appliances, whether you use LED or fluorescent bulbs for lighting, and the insulation of your building. Even simple practices, like turning the lights and air conditioning off when you’re not using a room, can reduce your carbon footprint and help you be more sustainable.
As a BBP member, our program managers can give you tailored advice about procuring clean energy. We can also help you access grants and rebates for energy efficient appliances, solar power and solar batteries.
Emissions
Waste and energy both produce greenhouse gas emissions, and they’re the most easily reducible sources in your centre. In addition to them, consider your upstream emissions, meaning the carbon emitted from the production and transport of your supplies.
Your BBP Program Manager can help you source more sustainable supplies and reduce your carbon footprint from procurement. We also offer free emissions reporting through one of our partners.
Teaching
To be a truly sustainable centre, sustainability and care for the environment needs to be embedded into your teaching and activities. Do you encourage your children to think about their natural spaces and connections to Country on a regular basis? Do your activities repurpose waste to reduce your environmental impact and educate children?
Check out our guide to teaching sustainability to see how you’re doing and find ways to improve your teaching practice.
Families, Culture and Community
Your childcare team and the families you work with are a great resource for spreading knowledge about sustainability. Culture and connection is just as important as action when building a sustainable childcare centre, as the more people are eager, the more impact we can have as a community. Is your team committed to sustainable practice? Do you encourage each other and the students from your centre to build a culture and community of sustainability?
Further Sustainable support?
BBP provides a range of sustainability resources for childcare centres. From online educational pages, downloadable documents to video inspiration. For further custom support, centres can join BBP as a member. Through learning resources, rebates, tailored advice, promotion and more, our members are well supported in their sustainable growth journeys.
Click HERE to access the BBP ‘How sustainable is your business Quiz’. or Click HERE to register your interest in becoming a BBP member.