Happy First Birthday Eco Council

In the week the Eco Council celebrated its first birthday, two members, Harris L (L6) and Malik N, (L6) reflected on the progress so far.

“We are delighted this week to be celebrating the KSR Eco Council’s one-year anniversary! This update will involve our aims for the future, the achievements we’ve made in a year and how the Eco Council was formed.

One year ago, a survey was sent out to the School Council with a list of things our school could do to address its sustainability, management and environmental needs. Ideas had to consider a mixture of effectiveness and feasibility and the most popular were actioned, which included:
• the formation of a whole school Eco Council (a group of members from years 1 to 13 aiming to improve the school’s sustainability)
• entering a competition and the creation of an award at prize giving

Due to the success of the Eco Council and other subsequent achievements we’ve made this year, the Eco Council aims to achieve more goals from the survey next year.

In this first year the Eco Council participated in an international competition called the Eco-Schools Award, which aims to create environmental success at different schools across the UK and beyond. We were pleased when we won (with distinction!) as it showed our dedication and work ethic we have made since the formation of the Eco Council. To annually honour this, we’ve created a prize giving award for every part of the school for environmental efforts at King’s. This is to recognise pupils who have gone above and beyond in proactivity and care to the environment.

We will miss our U6th founding members but ideas for next year include:
• a bike shed at King’s to promote conservationist and sustainable means of travel to and from the school buildings
• visible recycling by introducing clearer and well-placed recycling options around the school
• Senior School gardening club, to promote a farm to kitchen lifestyle by using some of the produce grown in the gardening club in the school kitchens
• more solar panels after the success of panels on the swimming pool roof
• water fountains and increasing the number of self-stopping taps all around the school, to reduce waste and the number of plastic water bottles
• a reduction in food waste promoted by the posters around the lunch rooms (pictured)
• meat-free Mondays could be reintroduced to the school as meat or cruelty-free substitutes are continually improving
• finally, the forest school at the Alps should be taking root and blossoming next year, quite literally

After one year of the Eco Council we are very pleased to look back on what we’ve done but also excited at the prospect of what we can achieve. The future looks bright for KSR’s sustainability and the Eco Council and looking forward to many more years to come”.

If you’d like to get involved with the flourishing, pupil-powered group and activities, or if you can help the Eco Council with any of its ambitions above, please reach out to Mrs MacDonald in the Pre-Prep, Mrs Rogala-Katolik in the Prep School and Mr Rivers in the Senior School, or any of the pupil members.