Sustainability
Harpenden Springs: Oakland Care’s first net-zero care home
Richard Dooley, development director at Oakland Care, discusses the provider’s green journey to date and its plans for Harpenden Springs – a new Hertfordshire home that will be Oakland’s first home to be powered by renewable energy, and not connected to the gas infrastructure grid
An urgency for collective climate action continues to grow in a world that is facing unprecedented challenges and change, with the natural disasters that are devastating countries and communities on a more frequent basis telling of this. If we are to prevent further deterioration of the climate crisis, we need to make changes to the way we live and work and take bold steps to achieving a more stable future. While it is difficult to measure the
overall carbon emissions of the health and social care sector, we too are bound by this obligation to change, by virtue of the ever-growing number of people living and working in care homes. At Oakland Care, we have been devoted to playing our own part in combatting this issue with an effective approach to sustainability that is focused on putting us in good stead for the future, as we continue to grow as a provider, so we can maintain our commitment to delivering change for the better.
A green journey
In 2020, Oakland Care took its first steps on its own ‘green’ journey. Since this point, we have become the first care home group in Britain to be certified as a carbon neutral business – a milestone that was symbolic of our collective efforts as a provider to combatting climate change – and continued to lead the way within the care sector when it comes to sustainability.
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Operating with environmental
considerations embedded throughout the business and applied at every and any opportunity has become the key pillar of our strategy, and we are extremely proud of the position we are currently in because of our steadfast commitment to combatting climate change. A key part of this journey has been
the transformation of our care home portfolio, which has not only involved making actionable changes to our existing homes but, as we have evolved and grown as a care home provider to a total of ten homes as of 2024 with three more projects under development, maintaining our commitment to sustainability within each of our new care homes. Nestled in a small town in Hertfordshire
we are currently embarking on a journey to deliver Harpenden Springs. This will be our most innovative, adventurous, and sustainable care home yet – powered by 100
We have become the first care home group in Britain to be certified as carbon neutral
per cent electricity. It will act as a blueprint for our future homes for the years to come.
Taking the right direction with BREEAM While green activities and carbon neutrality have been vital for establishing our position as a leader of sustainability in our sector, in 2021 we made the decision to go even further by embarking on a new journey through the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). I first became aware of BREEAM in its infancy, when it had a relatively small profile within the built environment sector. Following this point, I kept a watchful eye on its evolution as a process and its growing status not only amongst consultants and experts in the sector, but investors, too, who have come to recognise its value. Today BREEAM is the world’s leading sustainability assessment method for buildings and organisations and an internationally recognised certification which assesses a building’s specification, design, construction and use for its impact on the environment across 51 criteria. A BREEAM assessment uses recognised measures of performance, which are set against established benchmarks, to
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com March 2025
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