Environmental sustainability policy and procedure

This policy outlines Early Learning Victoria's commitment to environmental sustainability and climate change adaptation.

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Early Learning Victoria recognises the importance of caring for the environment and contributing to a sustainable future for all children. This includes recognising the history, culture and perspectives of First Nations peoples in connecting to Country, protecting the environment and promoting sustainability.

Early Learning Victoria also takes an active role in supporting climate change adaptation and mitigation and in building climate resilience. Our play-based programs focus on learning and playing in nature.

1. Scope

This policy applies to children, families, staff, management and visitors of Early Learning Victoria centres. This includes volunteers, students on placement and contractors or labour hire employees of Early Learning Victoria.

2. Policy statement

The purpose of this policy is to define Early Learning Victoria's commitment to environmental sustainability and climate change adaptation and mitigation by guiding centres to:

  • acknowledge and fulfil their responsibilities under the Climate Change Act 2017 and other relevant legislation
  • proactively reduce the environmental impact of their operations
  • build resilience through effective climate adaptation and disaster preparedness
  • engage children, families, staff and communities in meaningful actions to support environmental sustainability
  • support learning about environmental sustainability as part of a play-based educational program.

Early Learning Victoria commits to:

  • promoting respect for, and an appreciation of, the natural environment
  • embedding teaching and learning about environmental sustainability in the educational program, with a focus on child-led and child-centred pedagogy
  • ensuring learning environments encourage and inspire children to learn through play and in nature, foster children’s love and respect for the natural environment and teach children to understand the interdependence of people, plants, animals and the land
  • supporting children and staff to develop positive habits, attitudes and values in line with sustainable practices, and to take an active role in caring for the environment
  • encouraging staff to adopt sustainable practices and behaviours at its centres, including in relation to energy and water use, reducing emissions and adopting circular economy principles (such as reusing materials, recycling and minimising waste)
  • supporting environmental initiatives, innovation and practices at Early Learning Victoria centres, including the development of a centre-based environmental sustainability plan
  • supporting its centres to establish connections to First Nations communities, to foster a deeper understanding of sustainable cultural practices and apply Aboriginal perspectives when learning about climate, habitat management and related cultural practices
  • ensuring sustainable building design and infrastructure, product usage and procurement standards, and that assets and services are managed in a sustainable way
  • considering climate change in all relevant decisions, and in the development and delivery of policies, plans and projects.

2.1 Requirements

Mandatory requirements

All Early Learning Victoria centres must:

  • develop and implement a centre-specific, localised environmental sustainability plan and actively involve children, staff and families in its development (see Attachment 1)
  • develop and maintain an Emergency Management Plan under the Emergency management and evacuation policy. This should integrate climate risks and hazards, including extreme weather events, into centre emergency management
  • comply with legal requirements and Victorian Government policies; for example, the single-use plastics ban policy and the law against releasing balloons.

Environmental sustainability in Early Learning Victoria centres - 5 priority areas

Early Learning Victoria centres are encouraged and supported to plan, implement and monitor actions across 5 priority areas as part of their approach to environmental sustainability and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The 5 areas are:

  1. Centre leadership
  2. Facilities and operations
  3. Teaching and learning
  4. Community partnerships
  5. Aboriginal perspectives.

Child-centred and child-led approaches are integrated across the 5 areas. This recognises children as confident, capable and engaged learners who should be ethically and meaningfully involved in making decisions that affect them.

Below are examples of actions for each priority area.

Centre leadership
  • Establish an environmental sustainability committee or ‘green group’ comprising educators and children and encourage interested family or community members to join.
  • Lead and support development of the centre’s environmental sustainability plan.
  • Communicate the centre’s environmental sustainability plan to children, staff, families and the broader community.
Facilities and operations
  • Collect, track and analyse data on resource use to ensure efficient resource management and to identify areas for improvement.
  • Reduce environmental impacts, including through efficient consumption of water, energy, materials and other resources, and by minimising landfill waste and maximising recycling.
  • Leverage procurement for environmental benefits, including by inviting local, social or green enterprises to submit quotes and by setting evaluation criteria and weightings to favour more environmentally sustainable products and services.
  • Prioritise circular economy principles in procurement by sourcing recycled and environmentally friendly products and by selecting services that support sustainability (such as those with low environmental footprints or those that promote resource efficiency and waste reduction).
  • Support Indigenous businesses that provide relevant products and services.
Teaching and learning
  • Foster a connection to place by connecting teaching and learning to local places and local people, strengthening responses to environmental sustainability issues.
  • Empower children to actively engage with environmental sustainability, including climate change adaptation and mitigation, through age-appropriate learning experiences.
  • Encourage children to explore and develop their understanding of environmental sustainability by connecting lessons to real-world contexts that are relevant and meaningful to their lives.
  • Select and share books and stories about the environment and climate change.
  • Engage children directly in environmental sustainability initiatives – like composting, worm farms and recycling – incorporating and championing child-led initiatives.
Community partnerships
  • Leverage community organisations, partnerships and expertise to increase environmental sustainability and support climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Aboriginal perspectives
  • Engage with local Traditional Owners in a culturally appropriate way when incorporating environmental sustainability into play-based learning. This should recognise the unique and special knowledge, rights and connection that Traditional Owners hold to Country, including deep knowledge of how to care for Country, and land-based learning.

2.2 Background and information

Climate change, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity and pollution constitute a fundamental threat to children’s rights and to their physical and mental health, wellbeing and learning. These threats also disproportionately impact children, vulnerable populations, low-income households, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and people living in rural and regional areas.

In 2023, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued General comment No. 26 on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, emphasising the urgent need to address the adverse effects of environmental degradation, with a special focus on climate change, on the enjoyment of children’s rights. The General Comment recognises that under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, including access to clean air and water, safe climates, healthy ecosystems, healthy food and non-polluted environments.

Research confirms that experiences in the early years help establish lifelong behaviours and values. This reinforces the need for environmental sustainability education and practices in early childhood programming, and the important role that educators play in helping children develop values, attitudes and behaviours that support meaningful connections with the natural environment and actions for sustainability.

As such, Early Learning Victoria promotes a holistic approach to environmental sustainability that considers sustainability in service operations, teaching and learning. Early Learning Victoria centres have an opportunity to reduce waste, water and energy consumption, minimise their environmental impact and role-model sustainable living to young children.

The risks of climate change also extend to damage to Early Learning Victoria centres’ assets and natural environments, threatening operations, service delivery and health and safety. If not appropriately managed, these risks can disrupt business continuity, compromise wellbeing and undermine long-term stability.

Guidance and legislation

The Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework guides and supports a collaborative approach among educators, parents and children where children ‘are connected with and contribute to their world’, ‘broaden their understanding of the world in which they live’ and ‘learn ways to care for the environment and contribute to a sustainable future’.

National Quality Standard, quality area 3 (Physical environment) includes taking an active role in caring for the environment and contributing to a sustainable future.

Under Victoria’s Climate Change Act 2017, the Victorian Government must ensure that any decision, policy, program or process it develops or implements appropriately takes account of climate change.

3. Actions and procedures

3.1 Responsibilities of families

Families are responsible for encouraging their children to adopt environmentally sustainable practices, at the centre and at home, and for supporting their children’s learning and appreciation of nature through play.

They can also support sustainable practices at Early Learning Victoria centres. Examples include:

  • bringing cloth nappies to the centre if they wish (see the Nappy changing and toileting policy, including details about families’ responsibilities)
  • minimising use of single-use plastics, plastic bags and balloons, in line with this policy and legislation
  • complying with the centre’s environmental sustainability plan.

3.2 Responsibilities of staff

4. Resources

Legislation and standards

  • Climate Change Act 2017
  • Climate Change Strategy 2021
  • Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010
  • Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011
  • Environment Protection Amendment (Banning Single-Use Plastic Items) Regulations 2022
  • Environment Protection Act 2017
  • Circular Economy (Waste Reduction and Recycling) Act 2021
  • National Quality Standard, quality area 3: Physical environment
  • Victorian School Building Authority: Building Quality Standards Handbook
  • Whole of Victorian Government Emissions Reduction Pledge 2021
  • Eating and drinking: Health, nutrition and food safety policy and procedure
  • Emergency management and evacuation policy
  • Hygiene and cleaning policy
  • Nappy changing and toileting policy

Attachments

Attachment 1: Environmental sustainability plan template

Attachment 2: Strategies for environmental sustainability template

Definitions

Climate change: A change of climate attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable periods.

Climate change adaptation: Any process of adjusting to actual or expected climate change and its effects that:

  1. in human systems, seek to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities
  2. in natural systems, may be facilitated by human interventions.

In the context of early learning, climate adaptation focuses on reducing the effects of climate change on young children by improving understanding of the consequences of climate change among children, families and staff, taking action to build resilience to the effects of climate change, and learning how to adapt in response to climate change events.

Climate change mitigation: A human intervention to limit the extent of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (for example, from burning fossil fuels) or enhancing the ‘sinks’ that accumulate and store greenhouse gases (such as increasing carbon sequestration in forests, mangroves and soil).

In the context of early learning, climate mitigation focuses on teaching young children to appreciate and be aware of the natural environment so they can understand how their actions affect the natural world. This sets the foundation to empower them to become agents of change for climate action as they grow older. Climate mitigation is also about ensuring services engage in activities that promote biodiversity and natural ecosystems and do not contribute to further emissions.

Eco-anxiety: Mental distress or anxiety associated with perceptions of the negative impacts of climate change and worsening environmental conditions.

Environmental education: Learning about the environment, how natural systems function and the interconnectedness of plants, animals, humans and the planet. Environmental education promotes the growth of knowledge, skills and values about the environment through integration in the curriculum. Examples include maximising children’s engagement with the outdoor environment, integrating access between indoors and outdoors, and promoting the development of life skills such as growing and preparing food, reducing waste, composting and using worm farms, minimising consumption and recycling.

Environmental sustainability: The responsible use and management of the planet’s resources to ensure that they remain available and uncompromised for future generations to use and enjoy. For children, environmental sustainability focuses on helping them to recognise they are part of ecosystems and have a role to play in preserving, protecting and improving the environment.

Sustainability education: Aims to empower children and adults to think and act in ways that meet their immediate needs without jeopardising the potential of future generations to meet their own needs. It also promotes responsibility, respect, empowerment, active participation and enquiry.

Education

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