Environment

Our Products

As far as possible, SCEMES wishes to promote sustainability to schools and business and to conduct its own business practices in a sustainable manner.

All our Handbooks are printed on paper manufactured using renewable timber that is produced on a fully sustainable basis, and all our Handbooks are fully recyclable.

In order to reduce the amount of paper produced by SCEMES, we have developed our online directory, listing all our suppliers by region for ease of use for schools. In addition, we have developed our E-Quote facility, which enables teachers to search for the products or services that they require within their particular region and receive competitive quotes from a range of available suppliers.

It is our intention to continue to develop our products to ensure that they have as little impact on the environment as possible.

Sustainable Schools

SCEMES is committed to helping schools achieve their sustainable schools targets and has created the Headteachers and Bursars Handbook of Sustainable Procurement to provide teachers and procurement staff with all the information and resources that they need to purchase sustainable products and services.

The Handbook of Sustainable Procurement was inspired by the government’s Sustainable Schools Consultation Document which set out a series of targets that schools were expected to achieve by 2020.

The Document encouraged schools to introduce a variety of measures to make their buildings and practices more sustainable, but failed to offer concrete solutions to the problem of how this could be achieved.

What was lacking was a single point of reference which teachers and bursars could turn to for a summary understanding of the issues confronting education, together with pointers to solutions for many of their questions.

The Handbook of Sustainable Procurement was introduced in response to this shortage and has rapidly become every teacher’s first point of reference to understanding and solving the issues of sustainability within education.

By collating a comprehensive directory of sustainable suppliers and publishing information on sustainable development in education, we hope that the Handbook of Sustainable Procurement has enabled Headteachers and Bursars to save both time and money and encouraged them to make sustainable procurement a key part of their annual purchasing plan.

The Handbook of Sustainable Procurement, now in its second edition, is sent free of charge to 32,000 across the UK every April and is the only directory offering schools a comprehensive list of sustainable suppliers.

For more information about the Handbook, or to request a free copy click here.

Waste & Recycling

As far as possible, we conduct our business using paperless communication and it is SCEMES’ policy to keep mailings to a minimum.

With this in mind, we are developing an electronic newsletter that we will circulate to all our customers on a bi-monthly basis. The newsletter will keep customers informed of developments within the educational marketplace, update them on any news from SCEMES and inform them of work tenders within their area.

Within the SCEMES office, we endeavour to recycle office waste wherever possible and keep energy consumption to a minimum.

Education

We aim to promote awareness of sustainable development in all our dealings with schools and businesses.

Our Handbook of Sustainable Procurement is designed not only to be used as a directory, but also to provide a raft of information about sustainable issues, and to provide teaching staff with practical examples of ways that they can implement sustainable policies in their schools.

In the most recent edition of the Handbook, the introductory section contained articles from experts in the field of sustainable development within education; Professor William Scott, Director of the Centre for Research in Education and the Environment, and Ann Finlayson, the Sustainable Development Commission’s Commissioner for Education.

In addition, it contained chapters on each of the eight sustainable schools ‘doorways’ as outlined by the DfES in the Sustainable Schools Consultation Document.

These chapters were designed to provide a summary of each sustainable schools doorway, by explaining what they mean to the education sector as a whole, and detailing how their principles and ambitions could affect individual schools.

They were accompanied by evaluations and case studies from people working with and within the education sector as well as initiatives that will help teachers implement the policies in their own school buildings and grounds.

SCEMES is also committed to teaching pupils about the importance of sustainable development to counter the threat of climate change, and in the last two years has run writing competitions encouraging pupils to think about issues affecting our planet today.

In 2007, SCEMES invited pupils aged between 7 and 11 to write a poem on the theme of ‘The Environment’ and the responses were so thought-provoking, that SCEMES were inspired to publish a collection of the winning entries in an anthology entitled ‘The Green Book of Poetry’.

This year, SCEMES ran a short story competition on the theme of ‘One World’. The competition encouraged pupils to place the threat of climate change within a global context and the pupils engaged imaginatively and emotively with the theme, producing some outstanding stories.

Both competitions were supported by a raft of resource material, that was available free of charge to teachers. These materials included, worksheets, lesson plans, writing tips, sustainable school resources and information on a variety of related themes.