Malta and the UK – Eco-Schools

Eco-Schools is one of the Foundation for Environmental Education's international programmes designed to teach children about their environmental responsibilities and engage them in environmental issues in their schools and community.

Eco-Schools currently operates in more than 17,000 schools in 37 countries. They use a seven-step programme approach to engage the entire school in practical activities to improve their local environment. The seven steps are:

• Establishment of the eco-school committee;
• Environmental review;
• Action plan;
• Monitoring and evaluation;
• Curriculum work;
• Informing and involving;
• Eco-code.

Through these seven steps, students, parents, teachers and the wider community are encouraged to take a more active role in environmental decision making. Students are able to see demonstrable benefits of environmental management in areas such as waste, energy, water, air quality and landscaping, and then to discuss these through a curriculum-related focus.

Malta

EkoSkola, as Eco-Schools is known in Malta, started there in 2002 and is now active in 52 schools, involving over 19,000 students. HSBC became the main contributing supporter for EkoSkola for the first time in the 2006-07 academic year. The funds support materials used for the initiatives, seminars and activities throughout the year and information materials for schools. In addition, an HSBC employee is a member of the EkoSkola national steering committee which is responsible for:

• Establishing the programme for eco-schools for the year;
• Receiving applications from schools to participate in the EkoSkola programme;
• Providing guidelines to schools;
• Evaluating nominations for green flags; and
• Preparing national seminars and EkoSkola materials.

The green flag is an award schools can apply for once they have completed the seven steps. Applications are judged by the national steering committee which is guided by international Eco-Schools guidelines. These require, among other things:

• The majority of the school to be involved with the environmental initiatives;
• The school's EkoSkola committee to be run by the students;
• The local authority to be involved in some way in the programme; and
• The school to have achieved at least two-thirds of their objectives, as set out in the action plan.

EkoSkola is managed by the Nature Trust (Malta) and supported by the Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment, the Ministry for Education and a government waste company - Wasteserve.

UK

In the UK, ENCAMS (Environmental Campaigns) has set up a pilot project to try to engage more schools in the Eco-Schools programme, which follows the same principles as Malta. HSBC is supporting the one-academic-year pilot in Sheffield. Peter Bull, Manager HSBC in the Community, explains this support:

More than 20 schools will be participating in the ENCAMS pilot and more than 50 HSBC employees have volunteered their time to support the programme.