Solutions for the Planet

Tarmac continued to help school children work up award-winning sustainable business plans in line with the Big Ideas Programme run by Solutions for the Planet (S4TP). S4TP is a social enterprise that aims to build partnerships between businesses and schools to promote sustainability, and science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) careers.

The programme is aimed at students aged 11 to 14 and is delivered in collaboration with Tarmac and other partners through employee volunteering. Tarmac mentors partner with

students at local schools to support them with their ‘Big Ideas’ business plans, which are designed to tackle sustainability issues. Tarmac mentors provide their industry expertise to help the students make their plans as comprehensive as possible. These Big Ideas are submitted to the Big Ideas Competition, with Regional Finals held at local universities and the National Final in London.

Highlights from the 2024 programme include:

• Tarmac employees worked with over 2,000 students from 17 schools who got involved with the Big Ideas Programme
• Over 470 students created Big Ideas and 131 teams submitted to the Big Ideas Competition
• 49 representatives from Tarmac were involved - 39 mentors, three shortlisting judges, six regional final judges and one national final judge
• Eight teams from Tarmac-assigned schools got through to the National Final
• A total of 912 mentoring and judging hours were completed by Tarmac employees as part of S4TP

Proposals from teams throughout the UK were submitted to the Big Ideas Competition at the end of March 2024, with 62 of them being shortlisted for the six regional finals. From these regional finals, eleven teams then got through to the national final in London.

Eight of these teams were from Tarmac-assigned schools, including the winner, ‘Vita Verte’ from Plashet School, whose Big Idea was converting food waste from people into biochar in order to install green roofs onto houses. Some of the other Tarmac-supported finalists included ‘Kipp & Co’, solar panels using a cheaper, recyclable, strong material, polycarbonate, and ‘BioBike’, a motivational bike for young people that turns pedal power into electricity to charge items.

Tony Armbruster, senior manager reward, said: “The enthusiasm of the pupils was fantastic – they were eager to soak up advice – and their ideas were amazing. I was fortunate to have a team win the regional event and make it to the national final. It was a brilliant experience supporting our next generation.”