From ambition to action: focusing on what matters

September, 2026

With time and budgets under pressure, sustainability can quickly become another long list of things education settings could be doing. ESG Manager Chris Leonard explores why progress may be less about doing everything, and more about focusing on what matters.

There aren’t many weeks when something new doesn’t land in my inbox. A new platform, an accreditation, a piece of technology promising impressive carbon savings, a funding opportunity, some research I really ought to read, or a supplier with a solution we really ought to see.

Some of it is genuinely useful, some of it isn’t right for us, and occasionally something comes along that changes the way we think about an issue altogether. The difficult part isn’t finding ideas, it’s finding the capacity to properly understand them, challenge the claims being made and decide which ones deserve our attention. Because there’s another finite resource that rarely features in the sustainability calculation: time.

At Findel, sustainability forms a significant part of my role and, even then, I regularly find myself looking at an interesting report, webinar or new idea and thinking that I really need to find more time to look at it properly. Sometimes I do and sometimes something more urgent inevitably gets there first. And that’s in an organisation where sustainability has dedicated ownership and executive support. So, what does the same landscape look like from inside an education setting? That’s a question we’ve been exploring with our customers too, and two things keep coming back: time and money.

Neither is particularly surprising, but both are remarkably easy to overlook when we’re talking enthusiastically about everything education could be doing. Sustainability now touches energy and estates, procurement and supply chains, food, transport, waste, biodiversity, climate resilience and curriculum, to name just a few.

There are examples of fantastic work happening across the sector. Some large trusts are already well advanced for example, with established sustainability strategies and teams actively driving them forward. There are also some excellent organisations, programmes and resources helping education settings to take action, from carbon literacy and Climate Action Plans through to biodiversity, adaptation and sustainable procurement. But that picture isn’t consistent across the UK. Not every school has the same access to expertise, capacity or support, and not every setting is starting from the same place. For some, the question might be how to accelerate an established programme; for others, it may simply be “where do we begin?”.

That’s where I think the challenge becomes less about generating another list of things schools could do, and more about helping them understand what might make the biggest difference in their circumstances. What can realistically be delivered? Where are limited time and funding best spent? Which claims can be trusted, and which interventions are genuinely worth the investment? Because while the sustainability conversation continues to grow, the inevitably of Monday morning still arrives. There are children to teach, buildings to run, budgets to balance, staff to support and plenty of other things competing for attention.

We experience a version of this at Findel too. As we’ve progressed our own sustainability work, one thing has become increasingly clear: the further you go, the more opportunities you find, and there is always another project that could be added to the list. We’ve therefore had to become better at prioritising. Our work on supply chain decarbonisation is a good example. We could attempt to engage every supplier on everything at once, but instead we’ve used our data to understand where our greatest impacts and opportunities sit and started having deeper conversations with strategic suppliers. Those conversations aren’t simply about asking for another spreadsheet of carbon numbers. They’re about understanding what suppliers are already doing, where they are on their own journey, what barriers they’re facing and where working together might actually achieve something.

This isn’t about doing less because sustainability matters less, rather it’s about focusing effort where it has the best chance of making a difference. And perhaps there’s something in that for education too. One of the simplest ideas I’ve come across recently comes from the NHS: Buy less. Buy better. Buy different. There is quite a lot packed into those six words. Sustainable procurement doesn’t necessarily mean finding a ‘greener’ version of whatever you were going to buy anyway. It might mean choosing something that will last longer, repairing rather than replacing, consolidating orders or simply questioning whether something needs replacing quite yet. And occasionally, the most sustainable product might be the one you don’t buy. That may sound like an unusual thing for somebody working for an education supplier to say, but if we’re serious about sustainability, surely it has to be part of the conversation. The same principle can be applied more broadly. Instead of always beginning with “What else could we do?”, perhaps there is value in first asking “Where could we make the biggest difference?” Those aren’t quite the same question.

None of this means educators need less ambition or less support. Quite the opposite. There are examples of brilliant work happening across the sector, but there are also widely differing levels of resource, knowledge, funding and capacity available from one setting to another. Having options and knowing which option is right for your setting are different things. Sustainability support therefore shouldn’t necessarily begin by giving settings more things to do, rather it should begin by making the right things easier to do. With that comes some responsibility on those of us working alongside education too; if a school is telling us that time and money are barriers, simply presenting another list of sustainability initiatives isn’t enough. We need to do more of the homework ourselves.

Practically, that means understanding the evidence behind the solutions we’re talking about and challenging environmental claims rather than simply repeating them. Greenwashing remains a real risk when sustainability claims are difficult to substantiate, and educators shouldn’t need to become experts in the topic simply to make an informed purchasing decision. It means looking beyond upfront cost to durability and whole-life value, understanding where an intervention can genuinely make a difference and, equally importantly, being prepared to say when it probably won’t.

It also means improving the things within our own control. For suppliers like Findel, that’s our products, packaging, operations, deliveries and supply chains. We shouldn’t place the entire burden of making sustainable choices onto schools and then congratulate ourselves for providing the options.

There is still a great deal for all of us to learn, but perhaps progress doesn’t always need another initiative, another badge or another 87-page document for somebody to read in their spare time. Sometimes it needs better signposting, stronger evidence and clearer choices.

Schools don’t need to become sustainability experts overnight, nor should we expect already stretched teams to investigate every new technology, interrogate every environmental claim or somehow find the time to pursue every opportunity. Those of us working alongside education have a role to play in making that landscape easier to navigate. Because perhaps the next stage of sustainability in education isn’t about asking schools to do more – it’s about making it easier for them to do what matters.

Chris Leonard
ESG Manager, Findel
September 2026

Further Reading:
Department for Education – Sustainability leadership and climate action plans in education
Department for Education – School and College Voice: sustainability leadership and climate action plans
NHS England – Sustainable procurement
ClimateXChange – Driving emission reductions through the public sector supply chain

Further Reading from Findel:
Findel – Beyond the buildings why climate resilience must include SEND