That idea sits at the heart of our new national research report, The Lonely Role of the Sustainability Lead. It’s also one of the reasons we decided to carry out this research in the first place.
The Department for Education expects every UK school and trust to have a sustainability lead in place, and a Climate Action Plan ready. Although most schools and trusts have the enthusiasm for doing so, when budgets are under pressure, and priorities are already delicately balances, it's clear some challenges remain.
Across the country, schools and trusts are working hard to build a more sustainable future. The challenge is that sustainability rarely arrives as a standalone role. More often than not, it becomes one responsibility among many, sitting alongside teaching, estates management, compliance, leadership, or operational duties.
We wanted to understand what that reality actually looks like.
Rather than focusing on what schools should be doing, we asked people what they are doing. What’s working? What’s proving difficult? Where are schools making progress, and where do they need a clearer route forward.
Today, I’m pleased to share the results.
The report brings together responses from schools and trusts across the UK and paints a fascinating picture of sustainability leadership in education today. While every organisation is different, three themes appeared again and again.
The biggest challenge wasn’t enthusiasm. It was capacity.
Many respondents told us that sustainability work is being fitted around existing responsibilities, often with little or no dedicated time available to focus on it.
Most sustainability leads care deeply about making a difference. We always suspected this to be the case. They’re the people who volunteer to try and make a difference. However, many are navigating climate planning, reporting, and compliance requirements without formal training about any of it.
Without that training, it can be difficult to know where to focus efforts, and how to demonstrate progress with confidence.
One of the most interesting findings was the role collaboration plays.
Trusts often benefit from shared expertise, shared learning and a wider network of colleagues to draw information from. For leads working in single-school settings, that experience can feel very different.
Acknowledging these barriers is the first step to overcoming them. And that’s something we can help with. What became clear throughout the research is that many sustainability leads are asking similar questions, facing similar challenges, and looking for similar answers.
That’s why this report matters.
It provides an opportunity to see how schools and trusts across the sector are approaching sustainability, compare experiences, and identify practical ways forward.
Over the coming weeks, we'll be exploring these findings in more detail, and sharing some of the approaches schools are using to save time, build confidence, and make sustainability more manageable.
For now, I invite you to download the full report and explore the findings for yourself.
You may discover that more schools share your experience than you think.