Piers Morgan and npower help kids go green

The electricity firm’s Green SOS Academy competition encouraged schools to film clips of environmental problems in their school or community that they thought needed fixing, and send in their clips for a chance to win funding to tackle the problems.

Children from the 10 finalists were invited to a workshop hosted by TV presenter Konnie Huq to hear from journalist Piers Morgan on how to use the media to further their cause, and get green inspiration from Eugenie Harvey, one of the brains behind the book Change the World for a Fiver.

npower has also teamed up with Outward Bound to run the next stage of the programme, when the 11 to 13-year-olds will head to the Lake District to participate in the first ever green Outward Bound course.

It is the first time the Green SOS Academy has been run, as part of npower’s £20m Climate Cops programme to inspire children to make positive changes for the environment.

Clare McDougall, head of the Climate Cops programme, told edie: “Children are the ones that are easiest to reach and are excited still.

“When we go in with our Climate Cops academies, there’s a real feel good factor because they really care.”

Mr Morgan said: “Today a lot of brands run CSR programmes to help the environment, but it is refreshing to see activity like the npower Climate Cops programme that fosters green talent from a young age and allows students to make their own decision on what they can do to help.”

A panel of judges, including Mr Morgan and Ms Harvey, will pick a winning school and two runners-up which will all receive grants to carry out the changes they identified in their SOS videos.

Ms McDougall added that she is already in talks to repeat the scheme next year.

Kate Martin