Sustainable Development Commission urges NHS to take green health check

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) yesterday called on NHS Trusts across the UK to sign up to a new set of voluntary guidelines designed to help them curb their carbon footprints and bolster environmental performance.

The guidelines have been developed alongside the NHS Sustainable Development Unit and feature on a new website entitled Good Corporate Citizenship, which also provides an interactive self-assessment tool designed to help NHS professionals measure their current environmental performance.

The site provides advice on a wide range of best practices designed to help hospitals and other NHS sites reduce their energy use, carbon emissions and other environmental impacts.

"The NHS currently spends £480m each year on energy bills and dealing with waste," said Will Day, chair of the SDC. "The Model provides tools and information to make all areas of operations more sustainable, and we've already seen it work. Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust multiplied their recycling by 15 times in a year, saving over £150,000 by diverting it from landfill and generating income from waste metal."

He added that the adoption of green best practices could also help the NHS address long-term health problems amongst staff and visitors.

"We know NHS organisations can make decisions that help to prevent illness in the populations they serve, reducing the cost of treatment in the longer term," he said. "Often these decisions go hand in hand with improving the environment. For example, encouraging staff, visitors and some patients to walk or cycle can help reduce air pollution, carbon emissions, congestion and collisions, while improving people’s fitness and tackling obesity."

The NHS is one of the largest non-industrial consumers of the energy in the UK and is under growing pressure to curb its energy use and carbon footprint, particularly given that many larger hospitals will from next month have to join the government's Carbon Reduction Commitment emissions reporting and trading scheme.

Some commentators have warned the scheme, which distributes financial bonuses and penalties to participating organisations based on their ability to improve energy efficiency, could result in taxpayers money being transferred to private firms if hospitals and schools are outperformed by those private sector organisations included in the scheme.