2025 Climate Choices Schools Award Winners

The Climate Choices Schools Awards is an annual event. It recognises students, staff and school leaders in climate action and sustainability.

The Awards celebrate excellence across the Sustainable Schools Program focus areas:

• biodiversity
• energy
• waste
• water
• curriculum integration.

On 9 December 2025, awards were given in five award categories.

Schools Climate Action Conference Award – Mount Stromlo High School

For a school that sent a student team to the Schools Climate Action Conference in April 2025. The award went to the school whose team's actions after the conference had the greatest impact on sustainability.

After attending the Schools Climate Action Conference in April 2025, students from Mount Stromlo High School created broad and significant impact at the school by actively engaging teachers as well as students. The judges were impressed with the students’ presentation to the Sustainable Schools team which was entirely student-driven, highly organised and included project planning and a summary of impact across the year.

This included:

• a student-designed survey sparking interest in sustainability
• engaging teachers to provoke interest in sustainability education
• clothes swaps to reduce textile waste
• establishing a 10c Container Deposit Scheme collection
• running a house competition to save over 34.5 kg material from landfill
• collaborating with Urban Treescapes to plant native species and trees for their school
• creating a succession plan for next year’s student group.

Leaps and Bounds Award Aidan Beiboer – Mount Rogers Primary School

This award is for a staff member who is leading engagement with SSP Online in 2025 at a school which has not yet gained star accreditation. The Award winner’s school completed the most actions in SSP Online. Schools which gained star accreditation before the Awards announcement were not eligible for this award.

Aidan Beiboer teaches at Mount Rogers Primary School where he also leads the school’s sustainability programs, completing more actions in SSP Online than any other eligible school.

Aidan supported the student green team to actively care for the natural environment through the SEED Vegetable Garden, their school’s orchard and Bush Gardens.

He engaged the school’s wider community through open gardens where families can collect vegetables, facilitated working bees to improve school grounds, and created fundraisers for projects to enhance the sustainability of Mount Rogers Primary School.

School of the Year Award – Merici College

For the school with the greatest reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2025 per student, as calculated in SSP Online. The winning school demonstrates excellent resource management and efficient resource consumption.

Merici College had the greatest reduction in emissions per student at any school engaged with the Sustainable Schools Program, reducing emissions by 71.5 kg per student, as reported by SSP online. It achieved four-star accreditation through the program in 2025, by completing climate-wise actions in water, waste, energy and biodiversity.

Merici College has promoted youth leadership through their Sustainability at Merici (SAM) student group. This group has actively established initiatives including hard-to-recycle waste stations, collecting e-waste, coffee pods, stationary items, blister packs and cosmetic waste for their school. Students planted a biodiversity corridor garden. The students also volunteered with SEE Change to assist with recycling at events.

Merici College Sustainability Captain Rebecca Price and the SAM team established the interschool sustainable captaincy network. This student-led quarterly catch up connected secondary student sustainability champions, allowing them to talk about their concerns and share tips and ideas on sustainable projects.

Sustainability Buddies Award

Sustainability Buddies Awards are conferred on schools which attended Sustainability Buddies networking events in 2025 and formed a productive partnership with another school. This is a non-competitive award.

Six schools received the Sustainability Buddies awards this year.

• Merici College
• Aranda Primary School
• Mount Rogers Primary School
• Namadgi School
• Giralang Primary School
• Telopea Park School

Sustainable Steps Poster Competition Award

This award is for ACT school students from preschool to Year 6 who won their category of the Sustainable Steps Poster Competition in 2025.

• Preschool/Kindergarten category: Sam G, Gordon Primary School
• Year 1/2 category: Elizabeth C, Namadgi School
• Year 3/4 category: Noami E, Mount Rogers Primary School
• Year 5/6 category: Lihini J, Canberra Girls Grammar School

Find out more about the Climate Choices Schools Awards.