Our Green Ambitions for achieving net-zero
Our Green Plan
We are starting our sustainability journey as we work to achieve our ambition of becoming a carbon neutral trust by 2027. We have created our Green Plan to help us reduce the climate-damaging carbon emissions produced within the Trust. It covers our vision, objectives and how we will meet them.
Global warming affects everyone. If we don’t take immediate action, the adverse effects of rising global temperatures will worsen, leading to the most vulnerable groups within society, who are least able to cope, being most affected.
The NHS’s ambition is to be the first Net Zero health system in the world by 2040. Tackling climate change by reducing harmful carbon emissions will improve health and save many lives globally.
Our Green Plan aims to improve the sustainability of our care services and our support services. It allows us to plan and adapt to the future challenges of healthcare delivery brought about by the effects of climate change. We must achieve this without compromising future generations’ ability to have their needs met.
Our sustainability pledges
We will work with various partners, including NHS England and NHS Improvement, councils, hospitals, and healthcare partners, towards our vision of a sustainable trust.
West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership All Hands In for a better future.
This campaign aims to encourage everyone working across the Partnership to be aware of how individual actions can impact the climate and how decreasing carbon emissions is good for health. The Trust will ask colleagues to pledge to do one simple thing to reduce the impact on the environment. Find out more at allhandsin.co.uk.>
Greener NHS team at NHSE
The NHS has the ambition to become the world’s first net-zero health service by 2040 by improving healthcare with a Green NHS. The aim is to reduce the harmful gases it puts into the atmosphere. Fewer emissions will mean fewer patients with asthma, heart disease, and cancer. It will also reduce any disruption to the delivery of the care provided. Learn more.>
WYICS Green Plan
As part of the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership Five Year Plan, we are working with them to lead the delivery of the Integrated Care system’s ambition on Climate change. Working collaboratively across and beyond the system to ensure everyone plays their part on this most-urgent agenda. Find out more.>
Our green wins so far
Our Green Plan is just the start of our sustainability journey. We currently incorporate many aspects of sustainability into our activities, but we can do more.
Energy production and use is a significant source of CO2; as a trust, we now source energy for our owned & leased properties from 100% green renewable energy. We will be doing the same for our Private Finance Initiative (PFI) buildings in 2022/23.
Over 60% of our service fleet is now Electric. We continue to replace vehicles with new electric vehicles at the end of their useable life. We encourage staff through leases and salary sacrifice schemes to procure vehicles under 75g/ Co2 ( Hybrid & Electric).
We provide our delivery of Care closer to service users to reduce their travel. Re-thinking how we provide our services to users because of lockdown ‘Connect Conversations’ was piloted in 2020 and offered vital support virtually to those with eating disorders across the country. The award-winning Instagram Live series has more than 150 hours of content and more than 45,000 views. We are continuing Connect Conversations, and it is now a vital part of the service we provide. It allows us to make sure no one is left facing an eating disorder alone. Learn more.>
Connect now runs a weekly online support group known as the ‘Hub’, held via Zoom on a Wednesday night, providing another opportunity for recovery-focused discussion. Reducing the need for service users to have to travel, those that can find it much better to attend from home, allowing us to continue to reduce our carbon footprint.
Our move to agile and hybrid working allows the Trust to reduce our Estate’s carbon footprint and has allowed us to end the lease of our Trust HQ. Our agile and hybrid working allows our staff to collaborate with team managers to decide where staff can work, whether from home or one of our existing Trust properties. The result is reducing the size of our office estates and the need for staff to travel.
Our New flagship Building Red Kite View, will be BREEAM excellent and incorporates many sustainable, environmental, and energy-saving initiatives. We are also developing our de-carbonisation strategy for heating moving to carbon neutral sources. We are also introducing LED lighting across some of our other properties, aiming to have LED internal lighting across our care services Estate by the end of 2024.
David Sanderson, Director of Estates:
“The impact of the Estate is significant in reducing our carbon footprint. However, it is only part of our journey to become Net-Zero. Every service, department and individual in the organisation has an opportunity and responsibility to help us achieve this, through sustainable models of care and their own actions.”
The future
We have set out the next five years within our action plan as we develop and learn from others and identify new technologies and working practices. In planning for the future, we will consider and balance the environmental, economic, and social impacts of our actions. Implementing the plan will require changes to policy, procedures, working practices and behaviours. Communications and staff engagement are vital enablers of success. They are crucial in helping to ensure that the Green Plan delivers successful outcomes within our Trust.