St Andrew’s international school in Turi, a small village in rural Kenya, is a four-hour drive from Nairobi, “in the middle of the hills”, explains director and CEO Geert Simons. Set in 450 acres of grounds, it sits at an altitude of 2,600 metres - “higher than most ski areas in Austria”.

“When the air is clear and crisp, we can see Mount Kenya - 400km away from us - from our highest sports field,” he says.

No wonder the school has been a draw for the country’s national rugby teams (women’s and men’s), who come to train at altitude and enhance their performance. For the same reason, it also recently hosted the army.

In exchange for its hospitality, the school asks one thing: “If you come, you have to help plant trees,” says Simons (pictured above with members of the men’s rugby team doing just that). 

World first

Indeed, in the past two years, the school has been responsible for planting 60,000 trees. The army alone donated 10,000.

The push is aligned to Kenya’s national ambition to grow 15 billion extra trees by 2032 and raise tree cover to 30 per cent. It is, says Simons, the first country in the world to introduce a public holiday dedicated to tree planting.

However, the ever-growing forest in Turi is just one aspect of the school’s work to minimise its environmental impact. This got under way in earnest three years ago, and it has now set itself a goal: in another three years, it aims to be “self-sustaining” in terms of food, water, waste management and power - and to set an example for other schools around the world.

‘The luxury of space’

Simons, who shared the details of the school’s journey at the annual Council of British International Schools (COBIS) conference in London in May, admits that St Andrews, a boarding school with roughly 620 pupils, has something of a head start, given its setting and moderate climate.

It has “the luxury of space”, and leases land to local farmers for one Kenyan shilling (there are around 175 Kenyan shillings to the pound) so they can work it and produce food that the school then buys. Students also run their own farm.

“We want them to know that milk comes from a cow, not the shop,” he says.

Then there is the area’s temperate climate. With a minimum temperature of 8°C and a maximum temperature of 24°C, there is no need for energy-guzzling air conditioning in the summer or heating in the winter, provided the insulation is up to scratch.

However, the school is not resting on its laurels. The emphasis on achieving a more positive environmental impact has increasingly become a strategic priority, with students involved every step of the way.

Rainwater is collected and used for the school’s toilets and showers, while solar panels produce electricity.

“We already had them for heating our water, but now we are implementing solar panels and batteries all over the school,” says Simons.

Local sourcing

The food served to staff and pupils, meanwhile, is sourced locally.

This was not always the case. Previously, the school’s catering team ordered salmon from Norway and strawberries from Belgium, but now they use produce from the region as and when it’s ready.

“If it’s not avocado season, we don’t eat avocado,” Simons explains.

Eggs, meanwhile, are sourced from the local rugby and football clubs, which - at the school’s behest - started raising chickens, with any profits used to improve their programmes and equipment.

Small effort, big result

However, decisions around food have proven to be among the most controversial the school has taken, with meat-free Wednesdays one of the most hotly contested changes.

Simons says: “Kenya is a meat-eating country, so implementing a meat-free Wednesday was a big fight. But we succeeded by explaining why we were doing it.”

He adds: “It’s a small effort for the school but a big result for the planet.”

Waste management, meanwhile, has been the most challenging aspect of the school’s efforts to become self-sustaining.

“It sounds easy but it’s very hard because we can sort out all the waste we have, but we have to find a partner to collect the waste and do something useful with it,” says Simons.

Most straightforward was figuring out what to do with the school’s food waste - which is considerable, given that the school feeds 1,000 mouths five times a day. It goes to a local farmer, who uses it to feed his pigs; the animal waste is then returned to the school so it can be used to create biogas for cooking.

Modern needs

One major challenge looming for the school is how it can make the move to a new building in a sustainable way.

“The school is 100 years old, which sounds lovely, but it’s not meeting modern needs,” he says.

The plan is to retain the current building and use it for offices, while starting from scratch with the boarding houses and teaching spaces.

The school’s tree-planting efforts will help. As well as fruit trees and indigenous species such as the mugumo, it also plants eucalyptus trees, which grow quickly and can be used for timber. The school has also hired a sustainability engineer to help ensure the build blends into its setting and is as efficient as possible.

Leading with integrity

Concern for the environmental impact is one more factor in an already complex project, but an added incentive is the financial benefit of going green. As Simons puts it, what is good for the planet is also “good for the wallet”.

An energy audit that led to relatively simple changes, such as replacing traditional light bulbs with LEDs, reduced the school’s electricity bills by around a third. Meanwhile, on Wednesdays, when meals are meat-free, the school’s food bill drops by 40 per cent.

However, Simons is clear about the main driver for the school’s focus on the environment and sustainability: it is about making sure that the often very privileged students who attend the school - many of whom will go on to become influential figures in Africa - lead with “integrity”, “empathy” and “courage”.

“If you want to lead with integrity at this moment, you have to lead with the planet in mind, making sure that the decisions you make in your boardroom are good for the planet as well,” he says.

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