Sustainability

Health and environmental issues, especially air quality and climate change, are directly linked and a worsening climate has negative consequences for public health. But, globally, the health sector is a significant contributor to climate change. We recognise the importance of designing and delivering sustainable healthcare services and reducing our environmental impact wherever possible.

 

Our Green Plan

The Green Plan is a strategic document to support our work towards the delivery of net zero carbon emissions and sustainable healthcare over the next five years. It was approved by the Trust Board in December 2021 and submitted to the integrated care system (ICS) in January 2022 to inform the ICS Green Plan.

The Green Plan sets a clear strategic intent and a vision for the Trust to be:

‘A resilient and robust service provision which can adapt to a changing climate whilst delivering efficient, low carbon, patient focussed care’

The overarching aims of our Green Plan are to:

• ensure our approach is aligned to the NHS-wide ambition to become the world’s first healthcare system to reach net zero carbon emissions
• ensure we prioritise interventions which simultaneously improve patient care and community wellbeing, while tackling climate change and broader sustainability issues
• plan for and make capital investments while increasing operational efficiencies

View the Green Plan

View the 10 Point Green Plan

Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the last year some of our biggest achievements include:

• publishing our new Green Plan
• identifying climate change as a risk on the Board Assurance Framework
• utilising a Sustainability Impact Assessment required for all Trust capital bids
• securing over 4,000 trees to plant across our sites in 2022
• launching the third year of our behaviour change scheme, Green Impact
• starting a monthly staff webinar or “GreenPod” to share learning on environment sustainability
• procuring 100% renewable REGO backed energy
• expanding our electric vehicle charging network
• expanding our electric vehicle fleet
• across Estates and Facilities we have an Environmental Management System certified to comply with the requirements of ISO14001:2015

View our Annual Report 2021-2022