K-12 Climate Action Planning
Helping K-12 school districts achieve climate neutrality to mitigate climate change while training our next generation of climate solutionaries.
Communitopia helps k-12 institutions navigate the organizational, operational, and infrastructure changes required to reach climate neutrality through planning, training, and implementation.
Our one requirement - students must be at the table!
The need for the K-12 education sector to address climate change is clear
K-12 infrastructure has a sizable environmental impact: With nearly 100,000 public schools across the country, schools have a sizable environmental impact. Our public schools are among the largest energy consumers in the public sector, and energy costs are the second-highest cost for school districts behind salaries. With 480,000 school buses, schools operate the largest mass transit fleet in the country, and schools serve over seven billion meals annually.
Youth need to be prepared to advance just solutions: 3 million students a year graduate from our nation’s education system and join the workforce either prepared to advance an equitable, climate-friendly economy, or to advance business as usual.
Schools provide an important space for advancing equity: Climate change is a generational justice and social justice issue disproportionately impacting young Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Americans, and other students of color as well as students from low-income families. Schools provide an important space for advancing equity by ensuring that diverse student perspectives are elevated and guide efforts to support the education sector in moving toward climate action.
K-12 Climate Action Planning: A Pittsburgh Case Study
Woodland Hills School District’s Climate Action Plan
Communitopia successfully led the Woodland Hills School District through a three-tiered approach to respond to and address climate change between 2019 and 2021. We started with Climate Change Makers workshops for students, moved on to the first board approved Climate Action Resolution in 2019, and ended 2021 with an active youth Climate Action Team that hosted the region's first Youth Climate Action Summit, over twenty trained educators in solutionary curriculum development, and a comprehensive Climate Action Plan aligned to 2050 emissions reduction goals. All of this hard work resulted in the district winning the National Green School’s Award in June of 2021.
How Communitopia Can Help
Communitopia’s combination of formally trained educators, change management facilitation, and climate resilience expertise can help your district by:
Facilitating your climate action plan process, either in conjunction with sustainability strategic planning or in alignment with existing institutional plans
Performing Level 1 and/or 2 audits of your institution
Performing detailed technical assistance studies of your institution’s facilities to identify greenhouse gas emissions reduction opportunities
Gathering and developing baseline energy and Scopes 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions data
Developing or reviewing reporting data
Developing comparable peer institutional data
Identifying and articulating paths to carbon or climate neutrality
Providing project management in implementing aspects for the entire plan
Engaging stakeholders for plan buy-in, publicity, and institutional support
Providing climate change professional development for educators
Providing climate change advocacy opportunities to students
READY TO GET STARTED NOW?
Use the following student-friendly resources to build your own Climate Action Plan!
-
'How to' Guide
This step-by-step guide will walk your team through the stages of drafting a multigenerational Climate Action Plan.
-
Calculating Your Emissions
Download this spreadsheet to input the data for your school and select strategies to reduce your emissions.
-
Put it All Together
Use Communitopia’s Climate Action Plan template to input your newly developed strategies and emissions goals!