The latest report from the Center for Green Schools, titled "Managing Sustainability and Indoor Air Quality in School Districts: A Profile of Staff in the K–12 Sector," provides new insights from a national survey on the financial costs and benefits of hiring PreK–12 sustainability and environmental health staff to drive better working and learning conditions within schools.

Data collection

Evidence collected in the report represents validated survey responses from 70 PreK–12 school system–level sustainability and environmental health professionals, who represent 4.1 million students. The survey captures a profile of each professional role, including job title, drivers for job creation, responsibilities, accomplishments and challenges.

Findings highlight how an internal change agent—such as a dedicated sustainability or environmental health professional—is essential for school systems looking to

Save and leverage substantial sums of money.
Update curriculum with relevant, meaningful and integrated learning opportunities.
Improve the health and well-being of students, teachers and staff.

Key findings

Some of the report's key findings include:

School systems are struggling with tight budgets, but hiring PreK–12 sustainability professionals can pay off significantly. On average, sustainability staff achieve annual savings of $1 million, totaling 10 times their salary.
PreK–12 sustainability staff are most commonly working in facilities departments focused on money-saving endeavors such as energy and water conservation and waste reduction.
Increasingly, PreK–12 sustainability staff are reaching beyond the facilities departments where they typically are placed and are working with student activists and curriculum leaders to bring sustainability into teaching and learning. 
COVID-19 has elevated the importance of good indoor air quality (IAQ) for ensuring healthy schools. School district environmental health and facilities staff report that their job responsibilities have permanently changed in response to managing the COVID-19 pandemic, including a greater focus on IAQ.
School IAQ management has shifted significantly to include heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) strategies. Staff managing IAQ need training on HVAC-related IAQ improvements and to work closely across departments with maintenance staff.
Having dedicated staff to manage the wide array of health and safety needs has been an important factor for districts in building community trust. Additional resources are needed to support PreK–12 staff in communicating about IAQ topics and best practices with students, faculty and the community.

Advocating for specialists

The future of healthy, high-performance school buildings relies not only on creating and maintaining functional, safe learning spaces, but also on educating students, staff and the community about the impact of schools on climate change and health. This work is urgent and complex, and it requires dedicated and trained staff to manage it well.

Advocates looking to hire sustainability staff at their organization can find additional case-making facts, staffing examples, actual job descriptions and reporting structures in the companion resource, "Making the Case for K–12 Sustainability Staff: A Toolkit for Success."

Learn more about the value of sustainability and environmental health staff

New national report highlights benefits of hiring K–12 sustainability and IAQ staff