How research by Climate Outreach can support how you communicate your school’s climate action plan. 

If this is your first go at working within climate action, you may find that communicating your schools climate action plan is not as straightforward as you would think.

You’ve already got past the hurdle of recruiting a team. You’ve been working with members of your community and you’ve got some straightforward projects as well as some inspired big ideas. The next stage – communicating your aims – should be simple, right?

The challenge with this is that some of the language and ideas we are communicating within our climate action plan can be quite polarising, and depending on local issues, even controversial. 

Recent research by Climate Outreach gives a thorough overview of opinions, fears and ideas from the public, as well as offering solutions as to how those of us who work in this sector can communicate effectively. Some of this advice works very well for schools, who don’t want to get distracted by the noise around language used, and need their community on side. I’ve highlighted some of those solutions here.

Climate Outreach highlight three key findings from the research – let’s look at these and how we can make use of them in our school communication.

Three Key Findings 

• Nature is good.  

I paraphrase, but the overwhelming majority of the public agree that protecting nature is something we can be proud of – we are, after all, a nation of nature lovers. 

This means that those projects at school that work with nature, gardens and habitats can expect increased support – and can be something that your community will be proud of. So put those front and centre. It helps that they often have many co-benefits such as health, exercise – and that your pupils are often really keen!

• Trust in British government / politics is collapsing. 

Now, this could work in our favour if you choose to go down the ‘we’ve been asked to do this by DfE’ angle. But, I do prefer to think of something a bit more positive, and for schools it could be to focus on the local and what’s useful for your community context rather than the national. For example, you could have a focus on active transport as you know that the bus routes aren’t amazing, you can focus on funding to support the use of bikes. Or you could look at local community groups, how they are prioritising and if they want to work with your school on any of their strategy. 

• Climate Action has an image problem – but it’s fixable. 

This one is a tough one for schools to help tackle, after all it won’t look good if parents and communities think that schools shouldn’t be prioritising climate action, or that it is being given more resources than other areas of school life. 

The key here is to think about the vocabulary and the manner in which you share the actions and priorities from the climate action plan. E.g. net zero is not widely understood and can have negative connotations, so don’t use it. You might not want to talk about decarbonisation (even though it is a category) – and instead highlight the other benefits of action such as saving money, or helping create cleaner air around school. You might want to focus on the tangible benefits any actions bring for the future – e.g. good habits around reusing items, or teaching repair skills. 

Other findings to support communicating your climate action plan

• People are proud of work completed, especially when it’s local, so share the completed projects; that garden completed, the bike track, the wildflower meadow, the trees planted, the solar panels etc etc 
• Don’t overpower with jargon – people are concerned about climate change, but they don’t always understand what they are being told. Schools are usually very good at pushing through the jargon. 
• Tell your school’s story. An old buildings that needs to start with insulation? Then highlight the age, the context, the savings. Want to plant a wildflower meadow – explore the habitats that that will create, the role the pupils will play.
• Try not to worry about tackling the negative or controversial comments – instead flip the script with the focus on co-benefits. If your community isn’t keen on ditching meat for a day, emphasis the locally sourced meat and vegetables on other days, or the school-grown food you’ll be earring instead.  

Finally, a huge finding from the research is that people are enjoying the positive stories – so share the success! This will mean that your team is motivated, but also will bring the community onside. 

Read the full report here: https://climateoutreach.org/btc/2025/report/