At Buckswood, sustainability is not just an initiative – it’s also one of our 12 pillars. Every week we have a pillar of the week that reminds everybody of the foundation our school is built on and the pillar for this week is Ecology & Sustainability. For years, we have been committed to protecting the environment and leading by example through renewable energy, responsible waste management, and hands-on ecological learning. We are proud to announce the impact our sustainability initiatives have had in the last few months.
Our biomass heating system has long provided renewable energy to heat the school and supply hot water across campus. Between September 2024 and May 2025, our biomass boilers generated an impressive 1,183,020.9 kWh of renewable energy – enough to heat approximately 98 homes for a full year, while preventing around 233.4 tonnes of CO₂ from entering the atmosphere. Alongside this, our food waste recycling programme continues to transform everyday waste into renewable power. Over the same period, 124 bins of food waste were collected, processing 11,330 kg of waste, and generating 3,059.1 kWh of energy thus preventing 5.21 tonnes of CO₂ emissions. It’s a simple but powerful reminder that small actions, when taken together, can make a real difference. This term alone, 26 bins have been collected producing 703.35 kWh of energy with 2,605 kg of waste processed.
But it is not just the initiatives we would like to talk about. As we always say, real education happens when students roll up their sleeves and take meaningful action. And to put this in action, during their recent trip to Thailand, our students joined a mangrove restoration project, planting trees to protect coastlines and capture carbon from the atmosphere. This was real learning in action, teaching them a very valuable lesson that being sustainable and protecting the environment is and should be their personal responsibility.
These values continue far beyond graduation. We are incredibly proud to share some exciting news about Lodewijk Wurfbain, a former Buckswood student, co-founder of Nedamco Africa and a leader in climate innovation, has been invited to speak at COP30 in the Amazon, one of the most significant global gatherings on climate action. He will join senior figures from around the world at a high-level UN Climate Change event, helping to launch new tools for climate transparency and data as well as shining a light on solutions that drive global progress. His story is a powerful reminder that the lessons learned at Buckswood truly prepare young people to make meaningful change in the world.
Through experiences like this, we want our students to understand that caring for the planet is not just an abstract idea but a lived value as well as a constant and ongoing process. This is our mission at Buckswood – to nurture responsible young adults who acknowledge that protecting the planet is both a duty and a privilege.
By Russel Noronha
