There is a good chance that somewhere near your school there is a local sustainability group who know a great deal about climate action. They might be a Transition Town group planting food forests and running repair cafes. A local wildlife trust surveying habitats and rewilding road verges. A community energy co-op putting solar panels on rooftops. A Friends of the Earth local group running carbon literacy sessions.
These groups exist in towns and cities across the UK. They are run by volunteers who are knowledgeable, motivated, and often looking for exactly the kind of community partnership that a school can offer. And yet the connection between local sustainability groups and local schools is made far less often than it should be.
This is the second article in a series looking at how school partnerships can support your climate action plan. The first looks at business – and can be found here.
Why the partnership works both ways
It is tempting to think of local sustainability groups as a resource for schools, usually people who come in and ‘do things’. That framing undersells the relationship. The best school-community sustainability partnerships are genuinely mutual, with benefits flowing in both directions.
What schools bring to community groups:
- A ready-made audience of young people who will carry what they learn into their families and communities
- Credibility and visibility – a partnership with the local school signals that a group is serious and embedded
- Physical space – grounds, halls, gardens that community groups may lack
- Energy and creativity – pupils (and sometimes teachers and parents!) who get involved in genuine community projects develop enthusiasm that is contagious
- A link to parents and the wider community that few organisations can match
What community groups bring to schools:
- Real expertise that goes beyond what any teacher team can cover – ecologists, energy engineers, food growers, community organisers
- Real-world projects that give (climate) education genuine stakes and meaning
- Optimism – people who are actively doing something about climate change are, almost by definition, hopeful. That hope is contagious too
- Practical support for the climate action plan – from biodiversity surveys to energy audits to curriculum sessions
- A sense that the school is not alone – that the wider community is also taking this seriously
That last point matters more than it might seem. I frequenrly hear that sustainability leads and climate-engaged teachers feel isolated – or can have a sense that they are pushing something that nobody else around them cares about. A relationship with an active local group breaks that isolation. It reminds everyone in the school that they are part of something bigger.
Worth remembering: It also gives a powerful message to pupils – they see that adults outside school are taking climate action seriously enough to spend their evenings and weekends on it.
Local Sustainability Groups: Who is out there?
Before you can reach out, you need to know what exists. The local sustainability landscape is richer than most people realise. Here are the kinds of groups worth looking for:
Transition Towns and Transition initiatives
The Transition movement, which began in Totnes in 2006 and has since spread to over 50 countries, brings communities together around practical, local responses to climate change: food growing, energy, repair, and resilience. There are over 250 Transition groups across Britain, and many are actively looking for school partnerships. Find your nearest at transitiontogether.org.uk.
Wildlife Trusts
There are 46 Wildlife Trusts across the UK, covering every county. Many run education programmes, school grounds biodiversity projects, and habitat surveys that pupils can participate in. The Wildlife Trusts are also connected to the National Education Nature Park, so a partnership here can directly support your climate action plan’s biodiversity strand. Find your local trust at wildlifetrusts.org.
Community energy groups
Community energy co-operatives and societies have put solar panels on school roofs, funded school gardens, and delivered energy education in schools across the UK. Wiltshire Wildlife Community Energy, for example, has funded solar installations at local schools as part of its broader mission to cut carbon and support nature. Many community energy groups are specifically looking for school partnerships, they see it as part of their community benefit mission. Find local groups at communityenergyengland.org.
Friends of the Earth local groups
Most towns and cities have a local Friends of the Earth group. These range from small volunteer networks to well-organised campaigns with real capacity to support schools. Many deliver talks, workshops, and campaigns that translate well into school settings.
Incredible Edible groups
The Incredible Edible movement, which started in Todmorden in 2008, focuses on community food growing, often in public spaces. Groups like this can support school growing projects, connect schools to local food networks, and help embed the ‘food miles and seasons’ angle into climate education in a very hands-on way.
Local climate action networks
Many local authorities now have climate action networks or climate partnerships that bring together community organisations, businesses, and public bodies. These networks are often keen to include schools and can act as a gateway to multiple groups at once. Check your local council’s website for what exists in your area.
What local sustainablity groups and school partnerships can actually look like
The most effective partnerships are specific, a clear project, a named contact, a realistic commitment from both sides. Here are some of the forms they take:
Biodiversity and grounds projects
A local wildlife trust or ecology group surveys the school grounds and works with pupils to develop a biodiversity action plan – wildflower meadows, bug hotels, pond creation, bird boxes. The group brings the expertise; the school provides the space and the labour. The project links directly to the biodiversity strand of the climate action plan and delivers genuine curriculum content in science and geography.
Real example: Wiltshire Wildlife Community Energy has funded solar panels and school gardens at local schools, including Silverwood School – demonstrating that this kind of partnership is accessible to all settings, not just those with existing sustainability momentum.
Energy audits and green skills
A community energy group or local energy charity works with pupils to conduct an energy audit of the school, this could be measuring consumption, identifying inefficiencies, and proposing changes. Pupils develop real data skills, the school gets actionable findings, and the group demonstrates community impact.
This kind of project links directly to the decarbonisation strand of the climate action plan and can form the basis of a compelling case to governors for investment in efficiency measures.
Community food growing
An Incredible Edible group or community growing project helps the school establish and maintain a growing space and connects it to the local food network. Produce might be used in school meals, donated to a food bank, or used in cookery lessons. The project embeds a practical understanding of food systems, seasons, and the relationship between land and food.
Growing projects also tend to be some of the most consistently popular sustainability activities with pupils, the satisfaction of growing something edible is immediate.
Climate talks and visiting practitioners
A Transition group or local climate network sends a volunteer to deliver a session on what they do and why, this could link to careers talks as well, a solar panel installer, a community organiser, a rewilding project manager.
This is one of the lowest-cost, highest-impact partnership activities. It costs the school almost nothing and gives pupils contact with real-world climate action.
Joint community events
The school participates in or co-organises a local climate event. These could be a community repair cafe, a nature day, a climate fair, a local clean-up. Pupils have role, such as presenting their work, running a stall, leading a session. This supports the schools, sharing values and making it more visible int he communtiy. It also gives pupils an experience of collective action that is genuinely different from anything the classroom offers. This is also another project that could link to enterprise week, careers week or something similar.
How your school can find and approach local sustinability groups
Start with a search rather than a cold ask. Spend half an hour mapping what exists in your area before making any contact.
- Search – start with the links above.
- Check your local council’s website for any climate or sustainability partnership it hosts
- Ask your community – parents, governors, local businesses may already have connections to community sustainability groups
- Look at what other local schools are doing – who are they already working with?
When you make contact, be specific. Explain who you are, what you are trying to achieve, and what kind of partnership you have in mind. Community groups are run by volunteers with limited time so a vague expression of interest is less likely to get a response than a clear, modest ask.
Good opening approach: ‘We’re developing our climate action plan and looking for local partners who could support the biodiversity strand. Would you be open to a conversation about what a partnership might look like?’
Making it work — and making it last
The partnerships that endure are the ones where both sides feel the relationship is genuinely worth the effort. A few things that help:
- partnerships drift when there is no clear person responsible for them. Whoever owns the relationship in your school should have a clear link in the community group
- a one-off session or a single project is much easier to agree to than an ongoing programme. Start there and build if it works
- pupils who have a stake in the partnership, for example who have met the people, contributed to the project, seen the impact are the best ambassadors for keeping it alive
- write about it in your newsletter, mention it to governors, share it on social media. Making the partnership visible makes it real and makes it harder to let it quietly fade
- not every partnership works. If a relationship is not adding value for either side, it is better to acknowledge that than to keep it going out of obligation
The optimism argument
There is something specific worth saying about what community sustainability groups bring that schools often struggle to provide on their own: optimism and empowerment with action.
Climate education done well should not create despair. It tips that way if the only stories pupils hear are about the scale of the problem. Community sustainability groups tell a different story. Not a story that pretends the problem is solved, but a story about local people who decided to do something about it.
Those stories matter for pupils who are anxious about the future. They matter for teachers who sometimes feel they are teaching into a void andthey matter for communities that need to believe that local action is worth something.
A school that is genuinely connected to its local sustainability group community is modelling something important: that the response to climate change is not just government policy and international agreements.
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If you would like support identifying local partners or developing your school’s community sustainability strategy, get in touch.
Related reading
If you found this useful, you might also enjoy Beyond the School Gates: Partnering With Local Businesses on Climate Action — which looks at how schools can work with local businesses to build expertise, resources and real-world climate learning.
References and further reading
Transition Together — find your local Transition group
The Wildlife Trusts — find your local trust
Community Energy England — find local community energy groups
Natural England — Growing Stronger Together: community action for nature (2025)
DfE — Sustainability leadership and climate action plans in education
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