JCoSS students unveil a package of environmental measures to mark Tu Bishvat - The Jewish Chronicle

JCoSS has pledged to cut paper usage, reduce meat and dairy consumption and remove plastic from its cafeteria as part of a package of measures to lower the school’s carbon emissions footprint.

To mark Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees, on Monday, the cross-communal secondary school in East Barnet formally declared a “Climate Crisis at JCoSS" after a “JCOP 26” simulation exercise mirroring the recent global climate summit in Glasgow.

Every student was asked to make a personal pledge on how they plan to contribute to the school’s environmental target.

The first goal is to stop selling plastic bottles by 2024 after an audit revealed that the school uses 128,700 of them every year.

Campaign leaders will encourage the use of reusable water bottles and the provision of water fountains across the school.

The school aims to run fully on renewable energy within four years.

Ruben Pursey, leader of the organising group for the JCOP exercise, who is a member of the outgoing head student team, said, “There is a beautiful story in the Babylonian Talmud that inspires the approach of JCoSS towards tackling the climate crisis.

“It is the story of Honi who meets a man who plants trees so future generations can eat the fruit of these trees, just as past generations have done for him and his generation. I know that if my generation doesn’t act now, there won’t be the same planet for our children and grandchildren to inherit”.

A Tu Bishvat programme included a talk by of the leading rabbinic voices on the environment in the UK, Masorti Senior Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg.

Sara Levan, the school’s director of Jewish life, said the impetus for the project came from the students. “There were a number of students who wanted to strike last year during the climate protests,” she explained.

“We challenged them to bring their activism into school and this campaign, based around Tu Bishvat has been the result. There is a real feeling of powerful change being effected in the school today.”