Carrying out an environmental review helps the school to identify its current environmental impact and highlights the good, the bad and the ugly.

Typically, schools will firstly quantify their impacts for the theme they are working on (e.g. the amount of waste they are producing and sending to landfill, amount of paper they are consuming, amount of electricity they use, if they are recycling anything, identify litter blackspots, etc.). In general, schools will then qualify this information by working out, for example, what types of waste they are producing and where in the school the most waste is being generated (e.g. paper from the photocopier, waste from lunch packaging). However, schools may also undertake a review that includes the wider community (e.g. examine recycling levels at home; examine community attitudes to climate change etc.). A very comprehensive review template is provided within the Green-Schools themebooks. One of the most important aspects of the review is to make sure that the results are well documented, displayed and disseminated. The Green-Schools notice board and your newsletter are great places for publicising results.

When the time comes for applying for your Green Flag, you will need to provide details as to how and when you carried out your environmental review, who was involved, and what were the results obtained. As there may be a long time frame between your initial review and finally applying for the flag, make sure that records are kept of all your work and results.