At the heart of the Center for Green Schools’ work is the belief that schools should show our kids the best opportunities the world has to offer them. But, in each of our communities, most of our schools do the opposite: kids instead watch as outdated technology wastes time and natural resources; they see pollution, mold, and peeling paint that can make them sick; and they struggle to connect what they’re learning to the pressing problems they see in their community. We can do better.

Students, teachers, and school staff are not a small subset of our population. One of the opportunities presented by any work that focuses on green schools is in the enormous scale of both the people and the places involved.

Schools occupy a massive land area and square footage—just over half of the square footage of commercial office space in the U.S., in fact. Additionally, national investment in public school infrastructure is at a level that is only second to infrastructure investment in roads and highways.

The scale of school infrastructure matters because of the impact that it has on students and teachers and on their communities. Everything from short-term focus to long-term health to educational opportunity is impacted by where students attend school.

The 2016 State of Our Schools report took a look at state-by-state investment in public school infrastructure and found that we are only investing about 2/3 of what is needed each year to keep our schools up-to-date and in good working order. The lack of investment has an impact on student learning and on the health of students, teachers, and staff.

And, in fact, the advantages and disadvantages presented by our school environments matter even more when you consider that they are impacting students inequitably, depending on the wealth of communities and their ability to support high-quality schools for their students. The education of our students and the environment in which learning happens should work together to show our students the solutions that will lead to a more sustainable planet and healthier communities.

The values that are core to sustainability are also core to a school’s task of preparing students for a sustainable future and ensuring their academic success. The outcomes of a green school, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools award program, are: reduced environmental impact to model sustainable choices increased health and wellness to model healthy decision-making and keep students in school and school-wide sustainability and environmental literacy to prepare students for the future. These data-driven goals are supported by a culture that is inspiring and is connected with its community, both inside and outside its walls.

To illustrate what that culture looks like, the Institute for the Built Environment at Colorado State University studied successful green schools and came up with a descriptive framework to explain what it takes to succeed. If the outcomes of a green school should be reduced environmental impact, increased health and wellness, and school-wide sustainability and environmental literacy (what we call the “three pillars of a green school”), then the Whole School Sustainability Framework is the roadmap to show you how to achieve the outcomes. It explains that, to achieve green school success, a school must simultaneously address and improve their physical place, educational program, and organizational culture.

The Whole School Sustainability Framework document, found on the Center for Green Schools’ web site, describes each of the three areas in more detail and gives examples of each. What examples can you think of from your own experience in schools? Within educational program, think about how change has been driven by effective champions, a respect for the school’s unique place, and the driving force of student energy and ingenuity.

Within physical place, you have likely seen successful green schools that have effectively connected students and teachers with a systems mindset, a sense of continuous and progressive improvement, and active and playful spaces.

And, underpinning all green school efforts, a strong organizational culture is critical—one that enables clear and effective communication, fosters learning among staff and faculty, and maintains a focused sense of its vision and mission to uphold the values that are important to a sustainable world.

We believe that each of our communities’ schools should show our students the solutions that are going to bring us forward into a healthy, sustainable future and inspire them to invent things we can’t even imagine yet. Each of us has the ability to make sustainability real and tangible for students and show them how much we care about them and their future.