Results from nursery schools

The following results are based on checklists from 20 nursery schools and one other kind of institution. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the same checklist was used for companies and nursery schools, except for a question about environmental education for the latter.
Table 1 below shows that nursery schools in Denmark have come furtherst in working according to a project plan for environmental issues and nursery schools in Norway are doing well in using green accounting methods, but the figures for the other countries are rather low. When looking at the question of whether employees have been assigned to environmental issues, the nursery schools in Norway and Denmark do best, but the scores for other countries are much lower. Most countries, except for Norway, have high figures for providing employees having been given information on environmental issues. It seems more common that nursery schools in Norway, Sweden and Denmark have an environmental strategy, than in Finland and Iceland. The figures for intending to seek environmental certification and having and environmental management system are low for nursery schools in all countries, the reason simply being that this it is not relevant for their operation. The figures for this category, General environmental work, are higher for large institutions than for small ones.

Table 1

In general nursery schools are doing reasonable well in waste management. See Table 2 below. The large institutions are doing slightly better in this area. In no countries do institutions register annual waste to any degree or plan for waste reduction. The sorting system for waste is clear and accessible in the nursery schools in all the countries. Unfortunately, there was not a particular question about composting, but it is not uncommon that nursery schools have composting, with the children actively participating.

Table 2

Table 3 below on energy shows that nursery schools in all countries show caution with lights being switched on only when required. Countries vary considerably in this area, but Denmark has the highest figures in energy saving measures along with Norway. The use of the ecobulb is most common in institutions in Denmark and Iceland. Registration of annual energy usage is high in Denmark and Finland, but rather low in other countries. Large nursery schools are doing slightly better than small ones.

The figures for travel and transport are low in most categories for all countries, as seen in Table 4 below. However, bicycle stands are very common at nursery schools in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Co-usage of cars is only frequent in institutions in Sweden. Nursery schools in Iceland, Norway and Denmark score reasonably high in encouraging people to stop idle car engines. There is not much difference between large and small institutions here.

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5 below shows that institutions in Denmark do best in purchasing and material use, except in keeping packaging at a minimum when purchasing goods, where their score is 0 % (also in Sweden). Finland and Iceland do reasonably well in purchasing and material use. In general, most avoid buying single use products. Overall, small nursery schools do slightly better in this area.

In the category cold water and wastewater Denmark does best, as shown in Table 6 below. Finland does well in this category as well, expect in ensuring that harmful waste doesn't enter wastewater, where Norway and Sweden score low as well. It is noticable that there are less instructions for employees here than with many other categories. Small institutions do slightly better than large ones here.

Table 5

Table 6

Table 7 below shows that nursery schools in all countries are doing well concerning their exterior surroundings, except in Finland the figure for good shelter from wind on the company grounds is lower than for nursery schools in other countries. There is not much difference between small and large nursery schools.

Table 8 below shows that the nursery schools in all countries are doing well when looking at their work environment. However, the figures for air-conditioning are rather low for institutions in Norway and Sweden. There is not much difference between small and large institutions, although small ones have lower figures for air-conditioning.

The figures for environmental education are high for institutions in all countries, as shown in Table 9 below. This does not come as a surprise, since not only is education an essential purpose of the nursery schools work, but also, it seems that often they have more emphasis on environmental education and environmental upbringing, than schools at later stages. This is particularly important since they are planting seeds with the ones who are our future generation.

Table 7

Table 8

Table 9

The table below shows an overview of the results for nursery schools in all five countries. In general, nursery schools in all countries have high scores when looking at good exterior surroundings as well as concerning the work environment. There is much emphasis on environmental education in nursey schools in all the countries, but the figures in travel and transport are low. The figures are also rather low for institutions´ general environmental work. The results for small and large institutions here are similar.

  Photos by participants

Gardabær, Iceland

Hamenlinna, Finland