Environmentalists say big changes to how people live will be needed to hit climate change goals, like people driving electric cars, moving away from gas heating, eating less meat, and taking fewer flights, especially domestic.
The COP26 (Conference of the Parties) is a global UN summit about climate change and how countries are going to tackle it.
With this year’s conference currently taking place (31st October to 12th November), we decided to take a closer look at our own best practice, and what Kids Planet is doing to combat climate change and deliver a greener, more sustainable future.
Interest and awareness towards sustainability is growing, and we believe that investing in the awareness and education of our children is the most effective way to promote and provide a sustainable environment into the future.
Introducing sustainability practices throughout our settings and to the children in our care is of the utmost importance, and here are just some of the things we do across the Kids Planet family:
- We deliver a wide range of activities with the children focusing on the environment and how to care for it. In addition to supporting the child’s level of development, we are educating children about how we can all have a significant impact on the environment by making small changes.
- In many settings, we have recycling stations in the older children’s rooms. We believe this encourages them to not waste, and learn the benefit of recycling and looking after the planet, as well as encouraging good, tidy practice they can take home and to other settings.
- Our nurseries are full of natural resources, providing sensory benefit to children’s learning whilst having minimal to no harm to the environment. Lots of our beautiful resources are bought at charity shops.
- Each nursery works closely with its local community and identifies any sustainability/recycling programme they can become involved with that may be current within the community.
- Our dedicated Maintenance Team is always working hard with the nurseries to look at eco-friendly appliances.
- We diligently order the ingredients in our home-made food so that there is little surplus food that might go to waste. Any unused food is offered to parents and staff to avoid food waste.
- Our Procurement Manager reviews the number of single-use items each nursery is using related to the number of children in our care, to reduce as much waste as possible in any way we can.
- We support parents as much as we can, encouraging walking or biking to nursery where possible, and following their lead on initiatives such as reusable nappies, and always try to keep our parents informed and provide fun ideas they can do at home, such as growing their own fruit and veg.
Discover your nearest Kids Planet nursery here.
