SCHOOLS in York have made a New Year's resolution to cut their carbon footprint.

Nine York schools will go head-to-head over the course of the following five months to reduce their carbon footprint.

The competition is a key milestone in Norwich Union's Climate Change Champions programme which starts this week.

The schools taking part are at secondary level: Canon Lee, Huntington and All Saints RC and at primary level: St Lawrence's CE, Tang Hall, Dunnington, Naburn CE, Park Grove and Archbishop of York CE.

Students from all nine schools have recently held planning days to decide how best to reduce their school's carbon footprint as well as planning an awareness-raising campaign to get the whole school and wider community involved in the changes.

Climate Change Champions (CCC) is a new schools programme developed by environmental charity Global Action Plan (GAP) in partnership with Norwich Union.

Fourteen volunteers from Norwich Union's local offices are mentoring over 100 students ranging from seven to 16 years on understanding climate change, calculating their school's carbon footprint and devising a campaign to cut down on school waste and energy use.

The collective carbon footprint of the schools involved in the programme stands at 270 tonnes per month - that is enough CO2 to fill the Sydney Opera House six times.

Each school had the unenviable task of collecting all of the waste generated by the whole school in one day to be weighed and sorted.

This information, together with analysis of energy usage, gives an indication of the school's carbon footprint. The best schools will aim to reduce their carbon emissions by more than 20 per cent by reducing waste and energy use.

The schools achieving the biggest percentage reduction of their school's carbon footprint between now and Easter will be awarded a renewable energy installation to the value of £10,000 provided by Norwich Union. Creative thinking will also be rewarded with an additional prize for the student who comes up with the most innovative idea to reduce their carbon footprint through energy and waste reductions.

Norwich Union will award the winner's school £2,500 to spend on implementing their vision.

Norwich Union hopes to expand its CCC partnership to other local schools in 2008-9.

David Rhodes, Norwich Union Lead Volunteer for Climate Change Champions said: "All our volunteers are very excited about taking part in the Climate Change Champions initiative and helping local schools to reduce their environmental impact.

"Norwich Union pledged to offset its annual carbon emissions in December 2005 and has invested in five projects in locations including Sri Lanka, Ireland, India and China."

Schools are encouraged to register an interest in next year's programme by visiting www.climatechangechampions.org