CARBON REDUCTION
NHSPS is playing its part in NHS ‘net zero carbon’ drive
Cameron Hawkins, head of Energy and Environment at NHS Property Services, discusses how the business is set to reach the NHS’s net zero carbon goals.
The Devizes Integrated Health Centre is NHSPS’s first ‘net-zero’ health centre to be built.
As we look towards the future, and begin to think about a return to some sense of normality, conversations are reigniting around the UK’s net zero carbon goals. With the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) set to be held in Glasgow in November, the environmental impact of businesses across industries is being brought to the forefront of internal and external discussions. This includes within the NHS, which has adopted a plan to become the world’s first net zero national health system by 2040.1 NHS Property Services (NHSPS) owns approximately 10 per cent of the NHS estate, and is responsible for over 3,000 properties across England. We understand that we have a role in the pursuit of the NHS’s net zero goals, which will also help to support the wider net zero goals of the UK. To support the NHS in these ambitions, we are determined to reduce the negative environmental impacts of our buildings. To do this, we launched our energy and environment Strategy in 2019/20 – a broad-ranging, three-year plan, comprising around 200 actions across several key themes focusing on energy, water, liquid fuel, transport, waste, and plastic usage, as well, of course, as reducing carbon emissions. To enforce this strategy, we have established several programmes and campaigns, which also need to be monitored for progress and results. When we began this strategy, this was one of the first tasks I had to take on.
Our measurement practice, which I like to call ‘enabling works’, means we establish a baseline against which to measure progress and more resilient data. This is essential to monitor and provide evidence of progress, as well as the delivery of results. As NHSPS had a sufficient dataset in 2017, we decided that this would act as our baseline. After this measurement practice was implemented, I could be more confident in the impactful programmes we were creating, knowing that we are able to look back and see how we are performing, so that we can determine ways we can evolve and improve.
Establishing the programmes and campaigns
When we began to establish our energy and environment strategy, I wanted to ensure that we were implementing programmes that would work both in the short and long-term. This required looking at our current energy consumption, and envisioning what it could be in the future. We then looked at how we could ensure that the changes we made for the short term could be maintained, and, ultimately, support a long-term change for the organisation.
Step 1:
Reducing our energy consumption Reducing energy consumption is no easy feat. In April 2020, NHSPS negotiated new contracts that introduced renewable electricity and a flexible procurement
strategy for electricity and gas. These contracts have allowed changes to be made at no additional cost to tenants, with operating costs reducing for them too. This was achieved through reviewing our procurement strategy as a whole to identify any aspect that we could influence. This included line charges, and how taxes and levies were calculated, but, most importantly, our flexible procurement strategy – which enables us to trade our consumption throughout the contracted period, buying and selling volume to get the best price in the market. These changes have shown great progress towards our net zero goals, allowing us to offset over 37,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. In addition, this work has allowed us to achieve cost savings of 12%, equating to around £8.5 m over the first two years.
While converting our energy use to ‘renewable’ is a great step, we also wanted to reduce our energy consumption overall. To do this requires communication and collaboration with our customers and building occupiers. These tenants are predominantly healthcare providers, whose primary focus is rightfully on patient care, so our organisation had to identify ways to encourage engagement with these occupiers on the benefits of energy efficiency. To do this, we launched an engagement programme that involves upskilling engineers, and providing them with energy packs which they can use to work with tenants and advise them on the
April 2021 Health Estate Journal 41
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