NHS staff to help make Net Zero carbon pledge a reality

NHS England is aiming to launch a campaign in July that will ask more than one million NHS staff to make a personal commitment to help the health service achieve its goal of being net zero on carbon emissions by 2045.

To coincide with the run-up to Cop26 in Glasgow later this year, reports suggest that health bosses are planning a campaign to engage staff in efforts to make the NHS greener and to showcase the benefits reducing carbon emissions can have both on their own and their patients’ wider health.

The Independent reports that plans include an aim that ‘at least 100,000 staff have committed to support the NHS to achieve net zero’ by November this year. This will include staff pledging to cut their own carbon footprints as well as changes to services which will reduce hospital and NHS carbon emissions going forward.

To help drive the new campaign, NHS England has put out a contract tender worth up to £100,000 for a supplier to create the new campaign as well as a toolkit that can be used by local organisations to target their own staff.

According to the contract tender documents, NHS England said: “Reaching this goal matters. The core purpose of the NHS is to improve patient and community health outcomes. Climate change threatens this purpose, undermining the foundations of good health and putting the NHS, its staff, and the people it serves at risk. Tackling climate change is lifesaving, with health benefits gained through cleaner air, active lifestyles, and improved diets.

“As the UK’s largest employer, contributing 4.6 per cent of carbon emissions, the NHS is part of the challenge and the solution. It has a collective responsibility to act, with all 1.3 million staff having a role to play.”

In October last year, the NHS became the first healthcare system in the world to commit to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2045. This will include its direct emissions as well as those it can influence such as among businesses and suppliers it works with.

The NHS plan for reaching net zero includes ambitions such as improving hospital buildings and energy use, electrification of vehicles and sourcing more local and healthier food. There will also be a drive to reduce single use materials and plastics.