Green plan and net-zero

In October 2020, the Greener NHS National Programme published its strategy, delivering a net-zero national health service. This report highlighted that left unabated climate change will disrupt care, with poor environmental health contributing to major diseases, including cardiac problems, asthma and cancer.

Our aim is to be a net-zero organisation by 2040, having reduced our carbon footprint by 80% by the end of this decade. We intend to deliver sustainable healthcare for the benefit of the population we serve. Our green plan guides our sustainability programmes so that we can become a greener, more environmentally friendly organisation in the future.

To accomplish this, we have a dedicated team that has responsibility for defining sustainability strategy, and for researching and developing projects and programmes that will help us to deliver this target.

Our sustainability team is part of the Estates and Facilities Management (EFM) directorate, and there are two parts to our team; energy management and net-zero projects.

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Energy management

Each hospital has a designated professional energy manager who is responsible for improving energy efficiency, security of supply, and making sure that the Trust is billed correctly for the energy and water we use.

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Net-zero projects

We run and support sustainability schemes, such as electric vehicles and chargers, recycling and reuse for walking aids and furniture, plus travel schemes such as cycle-to-work salary sacrifice scheme.

We’re always researching new and innovative ways to improve the use of resources within the Trust and we work to bring people together - within the Trust and independent organisations - to implement new schemes and initiatives to support our staff.

Our current successes and future plans are set out in an over-arching ‘Green Plan’ which can be downloaded Green strategy - Feb 2022 [pdf].

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Travel planning

About 4% (9.5 billion miles) of all road travel in England relates to the NHS, half is staff commuting.

We carry out surveys with our staff every two years or so to establish how they get to work, and what we can do to help them shift to active travel and public transport, thus reducing our travel related emissions.

We provide schemes to support staff wishing to make a change to cycling, to car-share, or to switch to public transport. We also actively encourage those who can’t avoid driving to switch to battery electric vehicles (BEVs).

You can read more about out current successes and future plans in our mid and south Essex travel plan.

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Decarbonisation

We operate from a range of buildings, some of which are new and some of which nearly 100-years-old. Their thermal efficiency varies greatly. We are developing an plan to minimise the carbon emissions we produce related to heating, lighting and cooling our buildings.

Our carbon reduction plan will ultimately also incorporate changes to work practices and equipment to further improve the energy efficiency of how we provide our treatments and services.

Our current successes and future plans will soon be avaliable. 

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Our commitment to sustainability

We recognise the huge challenges that climate change, air pollution and waste present to the people of Essex and beyond.

As a major healthcare provider in the East of England, it's essential that we improve our contribution to climate change and embed sustainability throughout each aspect of our organisation to reduce risks to the health of our population.

  • We aim to reduce our carbon foot print by 80% by 2030
  • We aim to reduce our carbon footprint to Net-Zero by 2045.

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Key areas of focus

Our green plan will act as the framework for sustainability strategies across our Trust.

The plan will deliver the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan, to make sure that we are compliant with the latest legislation and enable us to become a more sustainable organisation.

Our key areas of focus are:

  • People and leadership
  • Sustainable models of care
  • Digital transformation
  • Travel and transport
  • Estates and facilities
  • Medicines.

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Sustainability targets and drivers

In line with national and local drivers, we will adopt the following targets:

Carbon reduction

  • We will achieve a 100% reduction of direct carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions by 2035. An 80% reduction will be achieved by 2030 at the latest.
  • We will achieve a 100% reduction of  indirect CO2e emissions by 2045. An 80% reduction will be achieved by 2039 at the latest.

Air pollution

  • We will convert 90% of our fleet to low, ultra-low and zero-emission vehicles by 2030.
  • We will cut air pollution emissions from business mileage and fleet by 20% by March 2026.
  • We will work with our ambulance service partners to understand the appropriate number of electric vehicle charging points we should install to accommodate their ambulances.

Waste

  • We will send no waste to landfill.
  • We will increase our percentage of recycled waste to 25% by 2025.

Procurement

  • We will seek to reduce our indirect emissions through our supply chain.
  • We will work to embed sustainability within our procurement decisions and practices.

Clinical services

  • We will work to reduce emissions through provision of our clinical services.
  • We will work to embed sustainability within our clinical care models.
  • We will work to eliminate unnecessary single use plastic items from our service delivery, where clinically appropriate.

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To meet this challenge

Sustainability is a key issue for everyone, and we have set out a number of initiatives we will take forward over the next three years which support our commitment to delivering change.

We are focussing on our sustainable action initiatives to deliver change. However, we cannot risk the quality of care we offer to our patients, For that reason, every one of our projects is considered against a ‘triple bottom line’ model to assess what patient care and financial benefits it will deliver alongside environmental benefits.

When assessing programmes, we always follow the philosophy of:

Reduce     |     Re-use    |    Recycle

We know if we use less, we spend less on acquiring, disposing and everything in between.

Can you get involved?

Yes, absoloutely! We encourage staff, patients and visitors to get involved through a range of communications and ‘behaviour change’ techniques.

To find out more or to get in contact, email mse.sustainability@nhs.net.

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