How we’re helping to build a greener, sustainable future

What does sustainability in the Early Years mean and what does it look like in a Kids Planet setting?

As interest and awareness grows for sustainability, we believe that investing in the education of our children is the most effective way to provide a sustainable environment into the future. In practice, that means encouraging all our staff to leave our environment fit for the next generation to enjoy a healthy life.

Introducing sustainability practises throughout our settings and to the children in our care is of upmost importance.

At Kids Planet, we are committed to delivering high-quality childcare with care and consideration for the environment. Here are just some of the things we do across our settings:

• Our nurseries are full of natural resources providing sensory benefit to children’s learning whilst having minimal to no harm on the environment. Many of the beautiful treasures are discovered by our teams when hunting through charity shops.
• We support parents who wish to use reusable nappies and have a strong process in place with additional training for staff, if needed, in how to manage this.
• We have worked with our nursery teams to reduce the number of ‘nappy sacks’ used when returning soiled items home and really thinking about what is meant by soiled. These are often changed due to having food spilt on them and therefore do not need to go into a nappy sack before going home. Whilst this sounds like only a small change, it has had a huge impact on our single use plastics. We have worked closely with the team to coach them in this area.
• Our Procurement Manager reviews the amount of single use items each nursery is using related to the number of children in our care, with a view to reducing as much as possible in any way we can.
• We encourage all parents and staff to walk to work/nursery – something which is not always achievable, but wherever possible, our settings support this in location and facilities offered such as bike and buggy stores.
• Each nursery works closely with their local community and identifies any sustainability/recycling programme they can become involved with that may be current within the community.
• We deliver a wide range of activities with the children focusing on the environment and how to care for it. In addition to support the child’s level of development, we are educating children about how they and we can have a significant impact on the environment by each making small changes.
• In many settings, we have recycling stations in the older children’s rooms.
• Our dedicated Maintenance Team are always working with the nurseries to look at eco-friendly appliances.
• The dispensers we have within our bathrooms dispense one paper towel at a time to avoid reams of paper being used – we all know children love to empty a roll in one go!
• Waste Management is overseen by our Procurement Manager and maintenance team to ensure it is managed in an environmentally friendly manner.
• The ordering of ingredients in our home-made food is stringent to ensure there is little surplus food which might go to waste. Any unused food is offered to parents and staff to avoid food waste.

If you’d like to know more, get in touch with your nearest Kids Planet setting here.

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