Sustainability
What is Sustainability
Some of you may be a little surprised to hear that sustainability is not just about nature. Yes, looking after and connecting with nature and the environment is incredibly important, but it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Sustainability encompasses many aspects of your, and your children’s lives. This includes wellness, economics, water and much more. It truly is a holistic approach and is not just about teaching your children. It is about how you manage your staff, how run your centre, how you run your daily activities and what you do throughout the day. Sustainability isn’t something you ‘do’ on Wednesday mornings before lunch, or another thing added to your already lengthy list of things you need to do in a day: it’s about how you do those things, and communicating why you are doing them that way. Starting these conversations and actions at day one sets our children up for success in the future
Sustainable Schools WA
Sustainable Schools WA is a strong program that is in over 430 primary schools and high schools in WA. This program has proven to be very successful and involves all aspects of these schools to truly embed sustainability across the years.
It seemed like a natural progression for LGS WA to join this network to include the early years in this model so there is strong consistent message for our children from day one, all the way through their schooling.
Sustainable Schools WA has divided ‘sustainability’ into 5 fingers and 5 toes. And asks you to look at ways to reduce your ecological footprint and increase your social handprint. It is important to not look at these digits as separate aspects; often if you are working on one of the ‘toes’ you will automatically be hitting one of the other fingers or toes e.g. if you buy things in bulk, not only are you reducing your waste but you are also reducing your costs and increasing your ‘economics/built environment’.
You can now download the new early years handprint and footprint posters for free by clicking on the images below.
For more information and sustainability resources, please visit our resources pages (members area).
If you have any examples of how your centre, service or school has displayed one of these aspects please let us know about it - we would love to share your success and inspire others!
