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Sustainability and the role of IHEEM’s ESAP
Environmental sustainability within healthcare estates is no longer a standalone conversation, says Steven Heape, chair of IHEEM’s Environmental Sustainability Advisory Panel (ESAP).
Environmental sustainability now sits alongside ageing infrastructure, backlog pressures, resilience, operational performance, overheating, capital constraints, and the wider challenge of delivering the future healthcare estate, including new models of care and shifting care closer to home.
None of these issues sit in isolation anymore, and none come with straightforward answers. Across the sector, organisations
are trying different approaches, learning lessons through live projects, and solving problems in real time. A huge amount of good work is already happening. The challenge is making that experience easier to share, easier to learn from, and easier to apply across the wider profession. That is where IHEEM’s Environmental Sustainability Advisory Panel (ESAP) wants to focus its efforts.
Adding real value
ESAP supports healthcare estates professionals in delivering more sustainable buildings and infrastructure by sharing knowledge, highlighting practical experience from real projects, and connecting organisations working to improve sustainability across the healthcare estate.
Its role is not to duplicate the expertise, research, and guidance already available across the sector, but to help make that knowledge
more visible, practical, and easier to apply within live healthcare environments.
A major focus for the panel is supporting the delivery of low-carbon healthcare estates through both new infrastructure projects and the improvement and adaptation of existing buildings and engineering systems. For many organisations, sustainability challenges are closely linked to backlog risks, infrastructure resilience, and wider operational pressures. Decarbonisation, infrastructure renewal, and adaptation to issues such as overheating are increasingly part of the same conversation.
The reality is that applying sustainability within healthcare estates is rarely straightforward. Organisations are balancing long-term ambitions with ageing infrastructure, operational pressures, financial constraints,
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and the need to maintain safe, functional healthcare environments.
What works well in one organisation will not always translate directly to another. That makes practical knowledge sharing increasingly important. Across the profession, there are organisations doing excellent work, but lessons learned and delivery experience are often difficult to access or disconnected from others trying to solve similar problems.
The sector does not need every organisation reinventing solutions independently. It needs stronger sharing of practical experience, including honest discussion
around what has worked, what has not and what others would do differently next time.
This is one of the areas where ESAP can add real value. The panel wants to help highlight recognised good practice, share practical delivery experience, and signpost useful guidance and resources that already exist. It also wants to support stronger collaboration across the profession, including links between healthcare organisations, professional bodies, academic partners, and networks such as NextGen. Most importantly, ESAP wants its work to reflect the reality of what organisations are dealing with across the sector.
Getting in touch The panel is keen to hear from people involved in
decarbonisation, estate resilience, infrastructure improvement, retrofit programmes, and wider sustainability initiatives, particularly where there are practical lessons others could benefit from. That includes examples of what has worked well, but also the challenges organisations are struggling to solve, areas where guidance can be difficult to apply in practice, and issues where the sector would benefit from stronger shared learning. There is already a huge amount of knowledge and experience within healthcare estates. ESAP’s role is not to sit separately from that work, but to help connect it, support it, and learn from it.
The panel is keen to hear from individuals and organisations who want to contribute experience, share ideas, and help shape the direction of the
conversation across the profession. Please reach out to
esap@iheem.org.uk – we look forward to hearing from you.
12 Health Estate Journal August 2026
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