How To Make Your School More Eco-Friendly

Julie Starr • Jun 15, 2021



No matter whether you’re a pupil, a parent, or a teacher working at a school, coming up with ways to make the place more eco-friendly is important. Everyone needs to pull together to create a better planet, and what more perfect place could there be to do this than at a school, where children are learning all they need to about the world? 

  Yet coming up with these eco-friendly ideas can be harder than it seems. There are many different options, but not all will be suitable for a school. With that in mind, here are some of the best ways you can make your school more eco-friendly. 

Meat-Free Mondays 

Eating healthy is something all schools should be promoting anyway, and if you can tie it in with being eco-friendly, that makes it even better, and something that the children and teachers – and parents – can understand. 

If lunch is provided at the school, then one day a week (this is traditionally a Monday, but it could be any day) could focus on vegetarian or vegan dishes. If packed lunches are required, then set up a challenge for students to choose something without meat. 

Grow Your Own 

Following on from this idea, wouldn’t it be amazing for the school to grow all its own fruit and vegetables ? It would undoubtedly make meat-free Monday much easier, and if the children were involved as well and were responsible for taking care of the vegetable area, they would gain a fantastic understanding of where their food comes from. 

Learning about sustainability and growing their own food won’t just help them at school; it will give them ideas about how to do this in their adult lives as well. They might even be able to talk to their parents about it, and start a vegetable patch or similar at home. 

Playground Surfaces 

Depending on the type of school and what grades it caters for, there might have play equipment like jungle gyms and slides within the play areas. When it comes time for playground resurfacing (something that should be done regularly to ensure the play areas remain safe), you can use recycled materials such as old tires. This material will have been cleaned and shredded and then turned into surfacing for the play areas. This is recycling at its finest, and it will help to keep the children safe as well. 

Litter Picking 

Litter is a big problem when it comes to the environment, but there is something that can be done about it. What would happen if once a week the grades took it in turn – with adult supervision – to clean up the litter in the school’s local area? 

The difference would be amazing, and it would be noticeable. This would also teach the children how to be responsible for their own waste, especially around the school. This is an important life lesson. 

  Eco-Friendly Supplies 

No matter what you might be supplying to the children at the school, whether it’s exercise books, pencils, crayons, or anything else, make sure it is eco-friendly. These eco-friendly products will then become an integral part of the child’s life, and they will become used to having them around, ensuring they make good choices in the future.

Is Your Small Business an Appealing Place to Work?

By Julie Starr • 07 May, 2024
Bringing passionate, enthusiastic and talented people into your business is obviously a top priority when you’re growing a company. However, the only way to onboard the brightest talent is by ensuring that your brand is an appealing place to work. Driven employees have certain expectations when it comes to choosing their ideal workplace, so you need to show them what you have to offer. Whether you’re looking into your business ethos , or reassessing certain compensation plans, you can do so much to ensure you’re attracting the best possible employees. Consider some of the following methods and your small business will soon be the go-to place for skilled, driven and talented individuals to work. Pay and Benefits Should Be Competitive When you’re running a small business, the idea of paying regular salaries to your employees will always be on your mind. Keeping up with bills and ever rising costs will never be easy, but you have to offer a competitive salary in order to attract the right type of people to your business. You should also consider all elements of a compensation plan so that your employees always feel valued for their contributions at your workplace. It may be worth talking to your current staff members to see what would be most important to them so you can assess it in the near future. Create a Career Development Plan Working towards the next goal is certainly something that most career driven individuals are keen to do. Staying stagnant in the same role for a prolonged period of time can reduce motivation and cause issues with staff retention. Making sure that there are clear progression opportunities will help to bring in the most talented and focused employees who are willing to put in the work and climb the ladder within your business. Adopt an Eco-Conscious Approach More and more employees are looking for workplaces that put the environment at the forefront and actively choose sustainable processes. Taking care of the planet and going green with your business may help you to align with the right talent for your company. Although this might not be the priority of everyone, it’s certainly a very popular value that a number of people carry in the modern day. Working in an environment where sustainability is a priority is extremely appealing and these people will help you to work alongside like minded colleagues within your business. Your small business goes above and beyond you as an individual; it’s also about the people who work for you and the potential employees you could be onboarding very soon. You can be sure that you’re reaching out to the right type of people and attracting the best possible talent by offering competitive salaries and benefits and working in a sustainable way that always keeps the environment in mind too. Hopefully, these ideas will give you a huge advantage when it comes to bringing in new people who would be an asset to your business.

How to Make Clinical Trials More Sustainable

By Julie Starr • 07 May, 2024
Running a business means you should know how to follow a sustainable path toward success. But while this is straightforward in some industries, it can be trickier in other professions. One common problem involves scientific businesses and laboratory environments that often struggle to ensure full sustainability and eco-conscious approaches. So how can clinical trials become more sustainable? Here is some advice to consider. Early Planning Planning is always a useful tool when working out how to improve sustainability within any workplace. You already know what you need to do, so why not focus on planning the different stages to ensure you can avoid delays or other problems that could generate wasted resources and electricity? Planning in laboratory settings is arguably even more crucial as the controlled environment requires a careful approach that is entirely error-free to ensure success and genuine results that scientists can use. Digital Solutions Businesses are using digital solutions more often as these can accelerate lessons and help them find accurate information immediately. The same can apply to clinical trials where using AI will reduce costs and provide quick insights into what you have learned, allowing you to make the most of the data without worrying you’ve made a mistake. Furthermore, this approach can avoid delays and reduce the number of people required in the lab at any time, meaning you can use fewer resources and don’t need to worry about getting to and from the lab. Partnerships Partnering with other companies or organizations can also help clinical trials become more sustainable. You can collaborate to share information, which means you have an entire library of data at your disposal without needing to collect it yourself. This can provide fast and efficient solutions and you don’t need to waste time and energy going into the field to collect this data yourself. Finding The Balance As much as clinical trials can improve sustainability, they also need to know how to find the balance. Since many central laboratory services require face-to-face conversation, it’s important to determine when to hold these meetings and invite patients into the controlled laboratory environment. You know you need to collect samples, but you must do as much as possible to avoid wasting resources. Ensuring you get everything right the first time will make a significant difference and help maintain a sustainable approach. Recognizing Where to Improve No business is perfectly sustainable, so understanding where to improve will be a continuous process. Clinical trials and similar environments can identify strategies to reduce the carbon footprint and take a more eco-friendly approach to their work. Although you won’t reduce your emissions or environmental impact entirely, you can do as much as possible to minimize any damage by maintaining transparency and following compliance regulations that put your laboratory in the best position to excel in every area. Sustainable Building sustainable practices is vital for any industry, and scientific environments are no different. These tips should highlight how and why clinical trials can become more sustainable to improve conditions and reduce the impact on the planet while also striving to further humanity’s knowledge and ability to overcome diseases and other issues.
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