Aspire Academy Trust wins our inaugural MAT Champion Award
Multi-Academy Trusts can play an important role in supporting their schools to save energy. Find out what our 2025/26 MAT Champion Award winners have been up to this year, and how they plan to build on their success.
We’re delighted to announce that Aspire Academy Trust in Cornwall has won our inaugural MAT Champion Award.
The award celebrates the collective efforts of 37 Aspire schools to embed climate action into everyday practice, helping to reduce electricity consumption, save carbon and lower energy costs across the Trust.
Energy Sparks data has revealed that in just one year 73% of Aspire Academy Trust schools reduced their electricity use, saving 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide and £20,000.
In a press release responding to the award, Aspire said:
“Official recognition of this incredible feat reflects a genuine whole-Trust commitment to climate action. It is not the achievement of one individual or one school, but of pupils, teachers, support staff, site managers and leaders all working together towards a common goal.
“Climate action starts with everyday actions. It can be easy to walk past a light switch without turning it off, leave an interactive screen on when it is no longer needed, or switch on lights unnecessarily on a bright day because the electricity bill is not a personal one.
“Through Aspire’s partnership with Energy Sparks, the Trust is helping to change that mindset by encouraging everyone to think differently about the choices they make each day.
“The Energy Sparks tool supports this by making it easier to identify which actions will be most effective and showing people the impact of their efforts. Aspire has also embedded several of Energy Sparks’ educational resources and activities into everyday school life – including the ‘Get Energised’ and ‘Beat your Baseload’ programmes, which are designed to get schools working together as a team to tackle common issues, such as out of hours electricity use. Many schools are surprised to discover that around 60% of their energy is used outside normal opening hours. By identifying and tackling this unnecessary energy use, schools can often make significant cost savings while reducing their environmental impact.
“While reducing energy costs is important, Aspire’s greatest achievement is creating a culture where everyone understands that small individual actions can have a significant collective impact. It is not only reducing carbon emissions today but also helping to educate both adults and children alike about the importance of caring for the environment and taking responsibility for all our futures.
“The Trust is incredibly proud of this recognition, but this is the beginning rather than the end of the journey. Climate action is not achieved through one project or one award – it is built through the everyday choices we all make.”
A recipe for success
Speaking about the decision to award the Energy Sparks MAT Champion prize to Aspire Academy Trust, Energy Sparks CEO Dr Claudia Towner said, “Aspire’s outstanding results clearly demonstrate that embedding energy saving into everyday school life delivers real benefits. We were particularly impressed by the way the Trust coordinated its schools to complete Energy Sparks’ structured energy-saving activities and educational programmes at key points throughout the year.
“The Trust’s approach combines a clear, strategic ambition to reduce carbon emissions with an inclusive approach that brings together central and school-based staff, academy sustainability leads, pupil eco-teams and the wider school communities.
“We would like to congratulate everyone who has been involved this year, and hope other trusts can take inspiration from them. The education sector has a big role to play in tackling climate change, and often the most effective ways to cut carbon can be achieved at little to no cost, simply by working together.”
What’s next for Aspire Academy Trust?
To help continue this work, the Trust will use the £250 award to create a number of Aspire Energy Detective Kits that can be shared across their schools.
Each kit will include a plug-in electricity monitor, enabling pupils and staff to investigate the energy consumption of everyday electrical equipment and identify opportunities to reduce unnecessary energy use. The kits will support its ongoing participation in the ‘Beat Your Baseload’ campaign, complement its work to get school communities working together through the ‘Get Energised’ programme and provide practical resources for classroom learning and pupil-led climate action projects.
To complement these kits, Aspire also hopes to launch an Aspire Energy Detective Challenge encouraging pupils to borrow the monitors to use at home with their families. By investigating household energy use and sharing their findings back at school, Aspire hopes to inspire positive behaviour change beyond the classroom and into the communities it serves.
Commenting on the award, Helen Bingham, Sustainability & EYFS Lead at Aspire Academy Trust said, “I’m incredibly proud of what our schools have achieved together. What makes this award so special is that it recognises the collective effort made in tackling climate change through everyday actions.
“For me, this isn’t just about reducing energy consumption; it’s about creating a lasting culture of climate action. If our children leave our schools understanding that their actions matter and, in turn, inspire their families and communities to think differently about the choices they make, then we’ve achieved something far greater than an award. This recognition is a wonderful milestone, but it also reminds us that there is still more we can do. Our work has only just begun.”
You can read our case study to learn more about how Aspire Academy Trust has used Energy Sparks to support their work.
