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Eleven Years with
Eco-Schools
Frans Suell Upper Secondary School is on its eleventh
year working with the Eco-Schools Programme. The latest
theme was Consumption – a theme that engaged a lot of
students. Among other things, they arranged a big swapping
day at their school.
TEXT PETRA HOLGERSSON PHOTO HÅKAN EKBERG
the trademarks of the Frans Suell Upper
Secondary School are handicraft, entrepreneurship
and service. There are a
number of vocational educations, such
as the Food Program and the Hotel and
Restaurant Program. Olle Bredin, contact
person for the Eco-Schools programme,
works at the Restaurant Program.
“we work every day with the environmental
aspects of the education,” says Olle. It
becomes very concrete in the restaurant
cuisine, which ranges from delicacies over
take-away and classical restaurant food
to large scale kitchen where we cook for
1.300 students every day. At the moment,
we are for example working a lot to both
reduce the waste and to increase the share
of KRAV- labeled ingredients we use for
cooking. (KRAV is a Swedish association
that develops organic standards, and promotes
the KRAV-label for products living
up to the standards.)
During last year’s theme, Consumption,
the school managed to increase the share
of ecologically and locally produced products
they purchased from 6 to 18 percent
and the school will strive to further increase
the percentage.
22 the keep sweden tidy foundation – school and preschool/inspiration
“We have, among other things, changed
our purchase system, making it easier to
order ecological products,” says Olle.
So hopefully we will reach beyond the
goal of the City of Malmö, namely that
ecological products should constitute 22
percent of the purchases.
It is not always easy to get students this
age committed. Lots of other things attract
their attention. However, the theme
Consumption has been easy to communicate.
Last year, for example, the students
arranged a big swapping day on
which huge amounts of clothes exchanged
owners. Also, students from the Textile
Program have been very interested in the
effects of using palm oil. Their teachers
had attended a lecture held by Swedish
nature photographer Mattias Klum, and
passing on the information about the issue
to the students, the students’ interest
was aroused.
the environmental council then tried to
arrange for Mattias Klum to lecture at the
school, but did not succeed. Instead, that
led to the school establishing a contact
with Malmö Museum – a contact that in
its turn has led to a future cooperation
Theme/
Consumption
The schools work with for
example: production and
transport, reuse, advertising,
ECO-labels
Through their work, the
schools and preschools help
obtaining: the Swedish
Environmental Quality
Objectives: Reduced Climate
Impact, A Non-Toxic
Environment, A Varied
Agricultural Landscape,
Zero Eutrophication, A
Good Built Environment.
EU environmental policy:
Climate change, Nature
and biodiversity, Environment
and health, Natural
resources and waste.
between the school and Malmö Museum
around different environmental themes.
“We have been thinking about maybe
having Water resources as our next theme,”
says Olle. If so, we have discussed with the
museum that they can bring the students to
a number of showings and then the students,
together with the museum pedagogues, can
create an exhibition on the theme.