The UNESCO Green School Quality Standard with Blue Marble
To support UNESCO’s ambitious target of greening at least 50% of schools in every country by 2030, they recently launched a sector-changing global framework to help education settings become sustainable.
Blue Marble has developed a simple, flexible accreditation scheme that enables schools to become accredited in the UNESCO standard. Explore how your school can become certified in the new global standard below.
What is the UNESCO Green School Quality Standard?
Climate change threatens our planet and future. Schools and other learning institutions are central places for accelerating climate action among learners and local communities. By empowering teachers and students to understand climate change in their own context contribute to making societies more sustainable and climate resilient.
The UNESCO Green School Quality Standard provides for the first time ever a quality framework for taking a whole-school approach to greening schools and other learning environments. It provides a suite of actions for settings to take, across four core areas: 1) school governance, 2) facilities and operations, 3) teaching and learning, and 4) community engagement.
You can access the standard here: Green School Quality Standard
How does the Blue Marble Green School Standard accreditation scheme work?
Becoming accredited in the new global standard for climate action and sustainability can be a powerful tool for schools, providing structure, recognition, and accountability.
We offer different tiers of accreditation depending on your progress:
Bronze – This is the lowest level of accreditation that can be achieved. To meet the bronze level you’ll need to have completed 30% of the actions set out in the UNESCO Green Schools Quality Standard.
Silver – To meet the silver level you’ll need to have completed 50% of the actions set out in the UNESCO Green Schools Quality Standard.
Gold – To meet the gold level you’ll need to have completed 70% of the actions set out in the UNESCO Green Schools Quality Standard.
Platinum – To meet the platinum level you’ll need to have completed 90% of the actions set out in the UNESCO Green Schools Quality Standard.
We charge an administration fee of £200+VAT to cover the cost of accreditation. The administration fee includes: access to the UNESCO plan template, all digital support and guidance, the accreditation review, resubmission of evidence (if required), and digital and physical copies of your school’s accreditation certificate.
The Blue Marble accreditation scheme takes a simple, flexible approach to helping schools achieve this accreditation in five easy steps:
1. Sign up to the scheme
Signing up to the scheme is quick and easy. Visit The Climate Action Plan Tool and register your setting. You’ll get the option to opt-in to the scheme when you create your school’s profile.
2. Create your Climate Action Plan
Select our pre-prepared UNESCO Standard Climate Action Plan Template. All UNESCO actions are captured in the template. You can then decide which actions to keep and which to remove!
3. Document evidence
Using your new plan you can easily upload photos, documents, and other evidence against any actions you complete.
4. Submit your plan
When you’ve uploaded your evidence and are ready to submit your plan for accreditation, click submit. Our team of climate action experts will then review your submission within six weeks.
5. Share your success!
Once we’ve accredited your plan you’ll receive both a physical and digital certificate of accreditation so that you can share your success with your staff, learners, parents and wider community. Your accreditation is valid for 18 months. At this point you may want to resubmit evidence to retain your current level of certification, or achieve the next tier of accreditation. Our climate action experts are on hand to provide guidance and support.