Value in Healthcare Awards: Energy Efficiency

Capita working in Partnership with Sussex Community Trust: Care without Carbon – a new approach to energy efficiency through sustainable healthcare

The judges said: “This submission is exceptional – our winner demonstrates great staff engagement and has great links with community care, home visits, clinical strategy and the university.”

In 2014 when Sussex Community Trust’s board approved the Care without Carbon initiative it had one main goal in mind – to become the first carbon neutral NHS healthcare provider in the UK. With the success of its previous sustainability project, which achieved a 15.7 per cent reduction in carbon in just one year, Sussex Community Trust had a good foundation to build on.  

The strategy follows a seven step management framework designed to support sustainable healthcare delivery:

• Reducing the environmental impact of the trust’s estate
• Minimising the health and environmental impact of travel
• Creating an ethical, resource efficient supply chain
• Informing, motivating and empowering people to achieve sustainable healthcare
• Enhancing the wellbeing of the trust workforce
• Ensuring trust infrastructure and operations are resilient to climate change
• Embedding sustainability in corporate governance structures and transformation programme

This strategy has been designed to reduce the trust’s carbon footprint by at least 34 per cent by 2020. The trust has projected that the Care without Carbon plan will deliver a CO2 reduction of at least 5,000 tonnes making savings of around £4.75m.

Sussex recognised that strategy alone will not achieve its carbon goal and have set out on a mission to engage staff and address the organisation’s culture. In implementing the Dare to Care campaign the trust created a website where staff were encouraged to make a pledge towards energy efficiency.

After just five weeks the website had over 800 different pledges from more than 200 people.

• See all the winners of the Value in Healthcare Awards 2015
• See the full list of award judges

Finalists

• Central Manchester University Hospitals FT: Partnership working and grassroots engagement for a step change in environmental performance and efficiency
• North West Ambulance Service Trust: Installation of energy saving technology
• Northern Lincolnshire and Goole FT: Energy performance contract
• Nottinghamshire Healthcare FT: Ray Crampton Energy Centre
• Spirax Sarco: Spirax Sarco helps Blackpool Victoria Hospital save £274,000 annually to heat water and cut carbon emissions by 1,400 tonnes