ATTEMPTING to reduce the impact on its local environment and promote awareness amongst staff, students, families and the wider community, Bright P–12 College are working towards a designated sustainability goal.

Teacher Nick Kenwright said student representative councils from both primary and secondary schools are driving initiatives as they work towards becoming a ResourceSmart School; a program run by Sustainability Victoria.

As a result, it has identified a number of areas that can be improved upon.

"We live in this amazing place with lots of kids who are very environmentally conscious but we didn't have a lot of initiatives in place even though it would be easy to make significant gains," he said.

"One of those was basic recycling, expanding on what we're doing already, so introducing school wide paper and card recycling initially.

"We then registered with Sustainability Victoria to follow through their five–star scheme which is all encompassing and helps us create a policy around sustainability.

"It's the whole package which helps us around grants for solar panels, reducing utility bills so there's more capital available for other school projects, embracing our natural environment where we live.

"It also creates values not just in school but outside of the classroom so our students become life–long environmentally conscious citizens.

"We've got some really passionate kids here so it's easy for them to drive it and get going."

Bright P–12 College council president Peter Mack said improving sustainability is a "current focus" of the school council.

"Over recent years students and staff have identified various opportunities to improve the school's sustainability but in several instances a lack of time and detailed knowledge has prevented the initiatives being fully implemented," he said.

"Recently school council approved funding for a part–time sustainability coordinator position to support these sorts of initiatives and help students, staff and school community clarify and achieve their sustainability goals." 

Year 11 student Kira Mack said she was most excited about helping the climate and reducing the school's waste costs and amount.

"We need students to educate, lead by example as a senior high school student, make signs and educational posters," she said.

"I think more schools should have a sustainability focus because the health of the world rests on the shoulders of this generation of students, so by educating people in school, they are more likely to make change when they are adults."

Year six student Tilly Dudley said she was looking forward to getting all the classes and staff "excited about our sustainable future".

"Some ways that students could help is we could get them into composting," she said.

"We could put compost bins in each classroom and every Friday a classmate could feed it to the chickens.

"I think the school should have a sustainability focus because of all the waste we create; not just with rubbish but also with all the scraps like broken pencils, art supplies and so on."

Bright P–12 is planning to enter the ResourceSmart Schools Awards in the 'Emerging School' category.

You can find out more about the awards here https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/rss–awards.