We have a Green Team which meets regularly, which enables children to take an active role in making the school ‘greener’. The children’s Eco Council is made up of two children from each class from Years 3 to 6, who apply for the role.

The Green Team work together to generate ideas to make our lives healthier, more sustainable and ‘greener’. They help with the following events:

• Increasing awareness about waste reduction, littering and recycling
• Engaging and learning about the importance of our natural environment and about the dangers of climate change for future generations
• Increasing awareness about air quality and the importance of sustainable travel
• Reducing the use of energy in the school
• Ensuring the school is recycling effectively at all times

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We have regular second hand uniform sales, run by The Friends of Belham. Second-hand clothes have a hugely positive social and environmental impact. They reduce carbon emissions, save lots of resources, water, and energy. They also prevent old clothing from ending up in landfills or incinerators.

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Our Year 5 pupils can opt-into an after school opportunity as part of a Young Enterprise scheme. We partner with Gather on Bellenden Road for the children to sell refillable and sustainable products. The profits from this go towards a treat on the Year 5residential!

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Our dining company is Olive. Olive are in collaboration with Olio who are their partner on food waste, Olio will collect any food that has been left over and then distribute this to families who are in need, and their working partnership with Olio also helps to:

• Save our planet- Reduce CO2 emissions and save water.
• Change lives
• Help families battling hunger or food insecurity.
• Donating your surplus food is a great way to give back to local communities.
• Hit sustainability targets and can help you achieve zero food waste targets

In addition, our core ingredients are sourced from the following suppliers and farms.Olive Dining’s procurement is audited by the Soil Association who have assessed their meals as being 98% freshly prepare on site daily.  Olive closely manages the procurement and sourcing of all our ingredients.

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Our ingredients travel fewer road miles which mean fresher, better tasting food. We travel theUK carefully selecting fresh ingredients from the growers and producers to ensure that we only offer our chefs the quality, consistency, and ingredients that they demand. This fresh food approach also means our Chefs have complete freedom to purchase the freshest meat, fish, and bread products every day with no supplier restrictions.

Olive Dining reduces waste to the lowest practicable level, ensuring responsible disposal of waste created and received, also undertaking environmental audits, and measuring the results against set targets to manage our waste production. The following are examples of how we manage our waste production:

Production Sheet - all Chefs are trained to fill out a daily production sheet to collect data, to manage levels of food being prepared.

Wrapper Free Deli Bar Offer – aid in reducing the amount of packaging used within our services.

Supplier Packaging– working closely with suppliers to minimise delivery packaging.

Biodegradable Packaging – Olive have eliminated all single use plastic from our primary services however any disposables used for trips are biodegradable to 6 weeks at soil level.

Staff Training – All Olive staff are trained to work more sustainably and have a sufficient understanding of the subject to achieve Olive Dining’s environmental objectives such as working in a smart way to conserve power and water, turning one quipment as required.

Creating a Restaurant Environment – creating the full dining experience using crockery, reusable dessert pots and water stations.

Road Miles - Our ingredients travel fewer road miles which mean fresher, better tasting food. We travel theUK carefully selecting fresh ingredients from the growers and producers to ensure that we only offer our chefs the quality, consistency, and ingredients that they demand.

Equipment ‘ThinkSmart’ – Switching on the oven at the right time; turn off lights, equipment, hot counters etc. when not in use between service and providing relevant training so that staff know how long a piece of equipment needs to reach the desired temperature, avoiding unnecessary energy wastage.

Energy Efficiency – when equipment needs to be purchased or replaced, we look for more efficient Grade ‘A’ standard models as an energy-saving exercise. Olive Dining reduces waste to the lowest practicable level, ensuring responsible disposal of waste created and received, also undertaking environmental audits, and measuring the results against set targets to manage our waste production.