Better Planet Awards 2026–27
Your students are already doing something brilliant for the planet. Tell us about it, and your school could win up to £1,000.
Maybe it is a battery collection point by the canteen. A clothes swap that took over the sports hall. A campaign that finally got single-use plastics out of the lunch queue. Or a wildlife area that started as one raised bed and grew.
Whatever your students are doing, the Better Planet Awards is here to recognise it, and to put real money behind it.
The Better Planet Awards is a new competition from Better Planet Education, the environmental education charity, celebrating secondary schools in England whose students are taking action on recycling and sustainability. It is free to enter, it is open to any group of students aged 11 to 18, and there are 23 prizes to be won.
£6,000 in prizes, and 23 chances to win one
Most competitions have one winner. This one has twenty-three.
Prize money goes to the school, to spend as it chooses.
Why your school should enter
Your students get taken seriously
Entries are judged by our Young Trustees, people aged 16 to 24, alongside the Better Planet Education team. Young people judging young people's work.
You probably do not need to start anything new
If a project is already running, it qualifies. It does not have to be finished, and it does not have to have gone perfectly.
Entering is genuinely quick
A thousand words or a three-minute video, plus a short online form. Your students do the work; you press submit.
Recognition you can use
Something for the newsletter, the open evening, the governors' report and your school's climate action plan.
Money that goes a long way
£100 buys a lot of bulbs. £1,000 changes what a student group can attempt next year.
It costs nothing
Entry is free, as is everything Better Planet Education does.
What counts as a project?
Almost anything student-led that cuts waste or helps the planet. We are especially keen to hear about projects that reduce waste and improve recycling:
- food waste and food packaging
- paper use and paper recycling
- plastics, especially single-use plastics
- batteries and other hard-to-recycle items
- clothing swap shops, and upcycling old uniform and kit
Projects on wider sustainability themes are very welcome too: creating wildlife areas, campaigning on climate change, saving water, or getting more students walking and cycling to school.
If your students are making a difference, enter.
Who can enter
- Secondary schools in England, including sixth forms, all-through schools, special schools and pupil referral units
- Students aged 11 to 18
- Any group: an eco club, a tutor group, a whole year, or five Year 9s who got fed up with the bins
- Projects already up and running, or launched specially for the Awards
- Entries must be submitted by a member of school staff
Key dates
Not ready to enter yet?
The deadline is in April, so there is plenty of time, which is exactly how good intentions get forgotten.
Leave us your email and we will send you a reminder before the deadline, along with a few ideas to get your students started.
A handful of emails, no more, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.
Questions?
Email awards@betterplaneteducation.org.uk and we will come back to you.
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