The Energy Community Pulse
From Planning to Proving Your School and Community’s Path to Carbon Neutrality
Tackling carbon neutrality together with your school and community.
A free readiness tool that helps schools take practical steps towards an energy community and a carbon neutral pathway. Built for schools and their partners in the UK, Europe and Türkiye, it helps school leaders, teachers, learners and community partners score what their school has actually done, not what it knows. It adjusts its guidance to the school's region and the age of its learners.
A ten-step blueprint runs from the first governing body decision to a verified public claim, across nine checkpoints and 56 questions. These cover governance and building ownership, energy baselines and fuel use, future pathways, buildings, energy communities, travel, food and waste, curriculum and reporting. A question only counts as done once the school records its evidence. Every question links to the UNESCO Green School Quality Standard, including all four of its essential actions, and to 20 UN Sustainable Development Goal targets marked as direct or supporting. It also links to the 12 GreenComp competences, each of which opens to show where it is used. Regional guidance sets out building rules, permissions for rooftop solar, legal routes to an energy community and rules on environmental claims. A Support tab lists partner networks and funding routes for each region. Intergenerational fairness, the Education for Climate Coalition's 2026 priority, runs through the questions. An action plan names a member of staff responsible and a learner lead for each step, with a deadline, the resources needed and a curriculum link. Eighteen one-page lessons for ages 5 to 11 and 11 to 18, with teacher's and student's notes, support every checkpoint.
Every rule and figure traces to named sources, including UNESCO, the EU's GreenComp framework, EU energy and consumer law, the European Investment Bank, REScoop.eu, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority and Great British Energy, and Türkiye's Energy Market Regulatory Authority, Ministry of National Education, Official Gazette and Advertising Board. Regional guidance was last checked on 27 September 2026. The tool is ready to adapt to your own school, community and budget.
Select · Classify · Prove
The Energy Community Pulse
A readiness check that takes a school through all ten steps towards a carbon neutral pathway, with an energy community at its centre. It scores what your school has done, not what it knows, and turns each gap into an action with a named member of staff, a learner lead and a deadline.
Aligned to the UNESCO Green school quality standard (2024), GreenComp (JRC, 2022) and 20 SDG targets, with the Education for Climate Coalition's 2026 priority of intergenerational fairness built in.
Set Up For Your School
Three quick choices tailor the check. Your region changes the building, legal and claim guidance in Checkpoints 4, 5 and 9. The age of your learners changes the learner activities. Your role gives you a first move.
Where Is Your School?
Which Learners Will Take Part?
What Is Your Role?
What This Tool Brings Together
Energy Communities
A group of local people, organisations and public bodies that jointly own or share renewable energy, such as solar panels on a school roof. A school can join as a member, offer its roof or land as a host, or help found one. The benefits are shared locally rather than paid out as profit.
EU definitions: Directive (EU) 2018/2001 and Directive (EU) 2019/944.
UNESCO Green School Quality Standard
Sets out what a green, climate-ready school looks like across four dimensions: school governance, facilities and operation, teaching and learning, and community engagement. Each dimension has one essential action. This check includes all four.
UNESCO (2024), developed through the Greening Education Partnership.
GreenComp
The EU sustainability competence framework: 12 competences in four areas. Every question in the check is linked to the competences it exercises, so the energy work doubles as competence building for learners.
Bianchi, Pisiotis and Cabrera Giraldez, JRC (2022).
How The Check Works
Answer each question with what has actually happened in your school. A question only counts as done when you record the evidence, such as minutes, a meter log or a published document. The tool then builds an action plan in the format the UNESCO standard recommends: who is responsible, the deadline, the resources needed, how progress will be checked, and the link to the curriculum.
Terms Used In This Tool
General Resources
Teacher’s Notes And Checklist
Student’s Notes and Planner
Energy Community Lesson Pack
Lessons 1-2 Worksheets
1 - Governance And Ownership (5-11)
1 - Governance And Ownership (11-18)
2 - Boundary And Baseline (5-11)
2 - Boundary And Baseline (11-18)
Lessons 3-4 Worksheets
3 - Futures Pathway (5-11)
3 - Futures Pathway (5-11)
4 - Buildings & Energy Efficiency (5-11)
4 - Buildings & Energy Efficiency (11-18)
Lessons 5-6 Worksheets
5 - Energy Community Route (5-11)
5 - Energy Community Route (11-18)
6 - School Travel (5-11)
6 - School Travel (11-18)
Lessons 7-8 Worksheets
7 - Food Waste And Procurement (5-11)
7 - Food Waste And Procurement (11-18)
8 - Curriculum And Community (5-11)
8 - Curriculum And Community 11-18)
Lessons 9 Worksheets
9 - Verify, Report And Claim (5-11)
9 - Verify, Report And Claim (11-18)
