SUSTAINABILITY


An enhanced SECR scope of emissions


Beth Goodwin said: “So, you can see that even the NHS Carbon Footprint includes an enhanced SECR scope of emissions, and goes beyond the compliance requirements of the private sector. Focusing on the Carbon Footprint Plus (Fig 3), it’s very rare for companies to try to put this level of Scope 3 information into their footprint – because in theory such emissions should be captured by other businesses’ footprints, and to attribute carbon costs to some of these areas is very challenging. This is where your Procurement Department comes in, with some very large shifts needed in how you tender, and how your Procurement team focuses on what it needs from suppliers, based around capturing this NHS Carbon Footprint Plus.”


Trusts would need to include some of the measures of their Carbon Footprint and Carbon Footprint Plus in their discussions when setting targets for their Green Plan to reduce emissions, which should help them ‘ground their plan in the organisation’s wider activities’, and ensure that others understand that significant areas of the scope sit beyond ‘Estates’. A Green Plan should not simply be viewed as ‘a compliance piece’ to meet a Trust’s NHS Standard Terms and Conditions; rather it should be ‘an entry point to a much broader network of sustainability measures and sensible targets’.


Reporting on performance I asked how, once Trusts were actively measuring their carbon footprint, they could best report on performance? Beth Goodwin said: “Trusts have had to report on sustainability within their annual Board


Visitor travel Staff commute Patient travel


Business travel and NHS fleet


4%


Anaesthetic gases and metered dose inhalers


Water and waste


5% NHS 5%


Carbon Footprint


10%


Building energy


24% Other supply chain Figure 3: Sources of carbon emissions by proportion of NHS Carbon Footprint Plus. 34 Health Estate Journal March 2021 5%


Personal travel


Medicines, medical


equipment, and other supply chain


8%


Non-medical equipment


10%


Medical equipment


4% 4% 20% 1% ‘‘


In developing your Green Plans, we’d firstly recommend you think about your ultimate targets, work backwards, and plan how you will get there


reports since 2010, but in many such reports, there is no reference to gas, electricity, or, in some cases, even carbon, within this section. We would recommend Trusts make the best of this, making a clear and meaningful public statement. Some may even have enough data to create a full, separate, annual Sustainability Report. If you are newer to this process, a page or two within your annual Board Report is a great place to start to dedicate to sustainability, and to tracking your Green Plan goals.”


“For now,” she continued, “let’s focus in on the NHS Carbon Footprint, rather than the Footprint Plus, since if you are going beyond the SDAT, this is the starting point for most of your annually trackable progress, and most Trusts will begin by reporting solely on their Building Energy footprint – electricity imported, and gas/oil/coal burned on site – easily locatable data, reported on within ERIC returns.”


Reduced building energy consumption Back in 2004, the NHS defined its Footprint+ as shown in Figure 4, with building energy accounting for 22%; today


Commissioned health services outside NHS


Medicines and chemicals


however, it accounts for just 10%. Beth Goodwin said: “The new charts (on pages 11, 13, 16 and 17 particularly) in Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service show the different areas which we should track to understand progress towards the 2040 Net Zero Footprint goal, and the 2045 Net Zero Footprint Plus goal. You should start tracking all of the green section as soon as possible, prioritising the core Carbon Footprint –your electricity, gas, oil, coal, water, waste, anaesthetic gases, metered-dose inhalers, business travel, and your NHS fleet. Next should be patient travel, staff commute, and visitor travel.


“Once you have data for all of the first category, and can begin tracking this annually, you can report your year-on- year progress in emissions reduction against your NHS Carbon Footprint, either from a baseline year of perhaps 1990, 2007, or 2008, or, more likely, from this year. So, ideally, you’ll be reporting in your Board Annual Report your progress against the SDAT scores for the year, how this compares with your Green Plan targets, your progress on Carbon Footprint reduction, and how this compares with detailed targets you’ve set in line with the essentials, and the Operational and Planning Guidance 2020/2021 discussed earlier.”


Work backwards from your end-goal


David Oliver said: “In developing your Green Plans, we’d firstly recommend you think about your ultimate targets, work backwards, and plan how you will get there. Secondly, create a roadmap for your next 10-year 80 per cent reduction goal, outline what needs to happen in each year of your 3-5-year plan, consider the impacts of each large change, and identify the barriers, and how you’ll overcome them.”


Some of the objectives and targets had already been set for Trusts, David Oliver explained, but the goals set in the Green Plan would need to be ‘aligned with the Trust’s awareness, current position, and how fast it can improve’. He said: “As an example, we have gone back to our hospital model (Fig 5), and considered what the facility needs to do to achieve an 80% reduction in carbon emissions from its heating by 2030. This doesn’t include the parallel challenges of carbon reductions in other areas.” Showing a slide, he said: “The green arrow shows a straight-line trajectory from the 1990 carbon emissions to a target of 80% reduction by 2030. This indicates that the grid decarbonisation and CHP installed since then have ensured that the site is ‘on-track’, but that even with the procurement of green electricity in 2021, it needs to take substantial measures to reach the end-goal.


©NHSE/NHSI


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